asteroids

An asteroid could hit Earth in 7 years. Here's how astronomers are tracking it

12:44pm February 12, 2025

Over the next several weeks, astronomers will be looking closely at an asteroid called 2024 YR4 that could be as big as a football field as they try to determine how likely it is to strike Earth in 2032.

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Astronomers are tracking an asteroid that could hit Earth in 2032

6:00am February 02, 2025

The odds are about 1% that the football field-sized object could hit the Earth, but that makes it the closest call in more than 20 years.

A European spacecraft launches to perform a crash scene investigation on an asteroid

6:33pm October 07, 2024

A NASA spacecraft knocked into an asteroid two years ago to test planetary defense. Now, a new mission will inspect the damage, with the goal of helping future asteroid deflection.

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Asteroid headed toward Earth? NASA simulation explores how the nation might respond

3:50pm June 21, 2024

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA and other federal agencies recently did a tabletop simulation of an Earth-threatening asteroid to see how they'd handle it

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Small rocks and dust from an asteroid, outside a round sample collection device in a NASA lab.

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Take a peek at what NASA brought back from an asteroid

5:00am October 12, 2023

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Scientists are thrilled with the tiny asphalt-black rocks, and most of the sample hasn't even been revealed yet.

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An artist's conception of the Psyche spacecraft approaching an asteroid that's largely composed of metal.

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This next NASA mission to an asteroid is seriously metal

5:22am October 11, 2023

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

A NASA mission called Psyche is about to launch on a mission out to an unusual asteroid that's scientists believe is largely composed of metal.

This mosaic composed of images of the asteroid Bennu taken by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft shows its surprisingly rubble-strewn surface.

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NASA effort to bring home asteroid rocks will end this weekend in triumph or a crash

4:30pm September 22, 2023

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA's first effort to retrieve samples from an asteroid will send a capsule that contains extraterrestrial pebbles and dust plunging towards a Utah desert on Sunday.

This imagery from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows the debris blasted from the surface of Dimorphos 285 hours after NASA's DART spacecraft smashed into the asteroid's surface.

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Astronomers still have their eyes on that asteroid NASA whacked

5:00am March 04, 2023

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid, directly altering its path through space. Scientists are still studying the space rock to learn more.

Asteroid 2023 BU will streak about 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface on Thursday night. Its path is seen here in an image from NASA's Scout impact hazard assessment system. The moon's path is in gray.

Earth will have 'a very close encounter' with an asteroid tonight, NASA says

11:42am January 26, 2023

by Bill Chappell

There's no reason for alarm — but, a NASA engineer calls it "one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded." It will be only 2,200 miles above the Earth's surface.

This illustration shows the DART spacecraft approaching the two asteroids, Didymos and Dimorphos, with a small observing spacecraft nearby.

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Move over, Bruce Willis: NASA crashed into an asteroid to test planetary defense

9:09pm September 26, 2022

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test of planetary defense. Now it will determine whether the mission was able to alter the asteroid's course.