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    Asteroid tagged posts

    The asteroid that may be three worlds

    August 11, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Asteroid (44) Nysa imaged with the SHARK-VIS instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope. The tiny moon S/2026 (44) 1, arrowed, was pulled from the asteroid's glare using techniques borrowed from exoplanet hunting (Credit : SHARK-VIS/LBT Observatory)
    Asteroid (44) Nysa imaged with the SHARK-VIS instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope. The tiny moon S/2026 (44) 1, arrowed, was pulled from the asteroid’s glare using techniques borrowed from exoplanet hunting (Credit : SHARK-VIS/LBT Observatory)

    What shape is an asteroid? For (44) Nysa, the honest answer until now has been that nobody knew. It is one of the brightest and largest E-type asteroids in the main belt, a class with a surface rich in enstatite, and its oddness has made it a favorite target for well over a hundred years. Successive observations hinted that it was elongated, perhaps even two lumps stuck together, but the picture stayed frustratingly blurred.

    An international team led by Kate Minker at Lowell Observatory has now brought two of the world’s heaviest instru...

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    Japan space probe skims asteroid in test for planetary defense

    July 7, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    asteroid (Dimorphos)
    This high-resolution view of Dimorphos was created by combining the final 10 full-frame images obtained by DART’s Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) and layering the higher-resolution images on top of the lower-resolution ones. Dimorphos is oriented so that its north pole is toward the top of the image. Credit: Public Domain

    A Japanese space probe performed a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid on Sunday in a test mission for technology that could help protect the planet from space rocks.

    The fridge-sized Hayabusa2 was due to fly within 800 meters (0...

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    Move over Mercury—Chiron is in retrograde: What even is Chiron?

    August 10, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist’s impression of Chiron and its coma of gas. William Gonzalez Sierra / UCF

    You might have seen an interesting phrase popping up in your social media feeds lately: “Chiron is in retrograde.” If you’re anything like me, you’ve never heard of Chiron before—and I’m a professional astronomer.

    So what is Chiron, and what does it mean to be in retrograde? The short answer is that Chiron is an asteroid-slash-comet orbiting somewhere past Jupiter and Saturn. And until January 2026, it’s going to look like it’s going backwards in the sky. If you can spot it.

    But there’s a bit more to the story.

    What is Chiron?
    Chiron’s official name is (2060) Chiron. First things first: it’s pronounced “kai-ruhn,” with a hard K sound.

    It was discovered by astronomer Charles Kowal in 1977...

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    Nuking a Huge Asteroid could Save Earth, Lab Experiment Suggests

    September 27, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A big asteroid could threaten life on Earth -- but nuclear bombs could come to the rescue, a new laboratory experiment suggests
    A big asteroid could threaten life on Earth — but nuclear bombs could come to the rescue, a new laboratory experiment suggests.

    The biggest real-life test of our planetary defenses was carried out in 2022, when NASA’s fridge-sized DART spacecraft smashed into a 160-metre (525-feet) wide asteroid, successfully knocking it well off course.

    But for bigger asteroids, merely crashing spaceships into them will probably not do the trick.

    When the roughly 10-kilometer wide Chicxulub asteroid struck the Yucatan peninsula around 66 million years ago, it is believed to have plunged Earth into darkness, sent kilometers-high tsunamis rippling around the globe and killed three quarters of all life—including wiping out the dinosaurs.

    We humans are hoping to avoid a similar fate.

    The...

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