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Astronomers in Italy have determined that our society could be at risk of getting seriously damaged by a potential impact between our planet and an asteroid. Such a collision could take place in approximately 160 years, between 2169 and 2199, and the main suspect is an asteroid known as 1999 RQ36. It posed no dan... |
9 February 2009
07:04 GMT |
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Modern vision perceives asteroids more as a threat than as anything else. Plans are being made to track the movements of near-Earth objects, to detect those that may be on collision courses with our planet and to intercept those that might prove hazardous. But it hasn't always been so, shows a recent experiment,... |
9 December 2008
03:57 GMT |
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A few days ago, accidental or dedicated sky watchers in Colorado were offered a nice treat, as a meteor breached in and made its way burning through the atmosphere, up to a climax point where it exploded violently, generating a light that outshone the Moon by a factor of 100. The event happened very fast, though, so ... |
8 December 2008
03:49 GMT |
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Most certainly, when the topic of destroying potentially hazardous asteroids that could reach a collision course with the Earth comes into question, almost everybody thinks of the 1998 movie "Armageddon," in which Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck saved the planet from one. Or at least Phil Plait's recent book, "Deat... |
4 December 2008
06:38 GMT |
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Technology is steadily evolving, devices and gadgets become increasingly smaller and optical resolution gets ever larger. Regular photo cameras now boast impressive 5 megapixel resolution and fantastic zoom-in abilities. Well, impressive until some while ago, that is. Still, in this accelerating age of minimizing si... |
1 December 2008
10:01 GMT |
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It was about the year 900 AD when a large, tree log-sized meteor smashed on the surface of the Earth in a western region of Canada, leaving a large scar as an amphitheater-shaped crater. It still lies there today, filled with small meteorite pieces, under a thick blanket of trees, as a research indicates. The meteori... |
29 November 2008
17:51 GMT |
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Rusty Schweickart, a former U.S. Astronaut, is leading a campaign that aims to convince the United Nations to pay serious attention and dedicate proper resources to the development of an accurate plan of detecting and dealing with potentially hazardous asteroids close to the Earth. In his opinion, the measures would ... |
26 November 2008
05:39 GMT |
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As some of you may know, the idea of ancient asteroids smashing off on the Martian surface and shutting down most of the planet's magnetic field is not new, and we've already written about it in a previous article. But a recent study provides more insight on how this may have happened, aided by new data obt... |
21 November 2008
03:58 GMT |
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A group of scientists from the Harvard University led by Katherine Cagen claims that a massive tsunami wave splashed ashore some 2,300 years ago, mightily sweeping the coastal regions of New York deeply inland. Even more, the researchers indicate it is most likely that the catastrophe was caused by an ancient asteroi... |
21 November 2008
03:12 GMT |
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While one of our previous articles stated the exact opposite of what you’ve just read, now, NASA is advised otherwise by experts from the Planetary Society (a team of space experts and enthusiasts from more than 125 countries). In a recent report, they claim that the plans made by president Bush, which saw a ma... |
14 November 2008
09:16 GMT |
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A recent study sheds new light on the early years of the solar system, and comes to indicate that its whole evolution must be reconsidered. According to the findings, during the first 3 million years, the system was full of miniature planets, called planetesimals, that sported tiny molten cores and solid crusts, and ... |
31 October 2008
05:31 GMT |
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The relentless search for new life-hosting planets has received a new boost from a recently-found star system located close to ours in astronomical terms. It looks a lot like our own did, back in the time life appeared on Earth, but a planet that would actually be appropriately placed is yet to be found. The system i... |
28 October 2008
04:13 GMT |
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Valid mathematical calculations based on accurate historical and present facts observations result in a theory that assumes it's more likely to die in a terrorist attack than being blown off by the impact of a meteorite's collision with the Earth. This sort of makes one ponder on the way money is spent in o... |
15 October 2008
05:17 GMT |
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As Rosetta, the ESA (European Space Agency) space probe launched in 2004, marched on towards its destination, the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet, it sent its first images back to Earth. As it turns out, the images are of the Type E asteroid known as Steins, a 5 km-wide rock in the shape of a diamond, brighter ... |
8 September 2008
10:54 GMT |
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If an asteroid were to be discovered tomorrow and proven that it would impact the Earth in less than a week, we wouldn't be able to do much to prevent this from happening. All we can do so far is hope that such events do not occur any time soon. Deflecting asteroids from a possible Earth-threatening trajectory m... |
29 July 2008
09:40 GMT |
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Yet another reminder of the dangers to which the Earth is subjected every day has been brought to our attention by the Arecibo Radio Observatory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's LINEAR search program which discovered earlier this year an asteroid expected to make a fly-by around Earth sometime tod... |
14 July 2008
02:38 GMT |
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It's not often that astronomers find asteroids made out of a single massive piece, but rather containing two or more objects loosely bound together or orbiting each other, tumbling through the immensity of space. The cause to this particularity remained a subject of debate for a long time, although now a new stu... |
10 July 2008
05:41 GMT |
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Europe's comet chaser, the Rosetta spacecraft, was powered up last week in anticipation for the fly-by around asteroid 2867 Steins scheduled to take place on September 5th, 2008. Rosetta was originally designed and launched in order to approach and study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with which the spacec... |
7 July 2008
03:30 GMT |
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The object in question is a newly discovered asteroid dubbed 2008 HJ, first detected on April 24 by a robotic telescope in Socorro, New Mexico. The object was then pointed by the Faulkes Telescope Project's website as a possible observation target and investigated by an amateur astronomer who discovered that 200... |
29 May 2008
03:41 GMT |
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Asteroid and comet collisions usually bring havoc to Earth, often provoking mass extinctions, but they can also seed life. In fact, we're most likely the product of such an event that took place several hundred million years ago. The last large impact that occurred is dated about 65 million years in the past and... |
15 May 2008
10:02 GMT |
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As it travels through the Milky Way, the Sun experiences a periodical oscillation in relation to the galactic plane, meaning that the solar system intersects with some of the densest areas of the galaxy. This in turn can send comets and asteroids our way and determine catastrophic impacts with the Earth, such as that... |
13 May 2008
09:31 GMT |
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2000SG344 is a Near Earth Object only 40 meters in diameter which passes periodically through the vicinity of our planet at speeds as high as 44,8 kilometers per hour. Astronomers estimate that in the next six decades or so, the asteroid will approach Earth considerably but it will not intersect the orbit of the plan... |
8 May 2008
10:21 GMT |
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Many people don't know this but there are about 5,000 Near Earth Objects at least 10 kilometers wide that may one day decide to come crashing down on the surface without us even knowing. The consequences of an impact with such a large object are now known, but considering that an object that size may have been r... |
6 May 2008
10:06 GMT |
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The last big impact experienced by Earth occurred 65-million-year ago in Chicxulub, the Yucatan peninsula (southeastern Mexico) and doomed the world of the dinosaurs. If a similar asteroid would shock again with our planet, our very existence would be menaced. Smaller asteroids frequently hit Earth. For instance, the... |
30 April 2008
14:06 GMT |
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A few days ago, 13 year-old German Nico Marquardt seemed to have embarrassed all NASA scientists when he announced that the odds of asteroid Apophis hitting the Earth in 2036 have been greatly underestimated. The funny thing is that many sources rushed to state that NASA and the ESA confirmed the schoolboy's res... |
18 April 2008
06:43 GMT |
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2004 MN4, or most popularly known as asteroid 99942 Apophis, is a near Earth asteroid discovered in December 2004. Apophis measures about 400 meters in diameter and upon its discovery, it was given a chance of 2.7 percent that it will hit our planet in 2029. On 19 October 2006, NASA estimated that Apophis had a chang... |
16 April 2008
06:36 GMT |
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Earth, unlike the other rocky planets in the solar system, is extremely geologically active, constantly shifting and remodeling the surface through plate tectonics shifts, volcanic eruptions and erosion, and mountains formation. This basically means that any evidence of old meteorite and asteroid impacts are mostly h... |
14 April 2008
08:30 GMT |
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took lately a couple of pictures of the Martian surface revealing some sand dunes, on the Hellespontus region of the planet, looking strikingly similar to a series of hoofmarks. According to NASA, such surface formations have also been spotted on Earth and are called barchan du... |
14 April 2008
04:42 GMT |
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Hayabusa, meaning peregrine falcon in Japanese, is an unmanned space mission carried out by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, having the task of returning dust from the near-Earth asteroid known as 25143 Itokawa, measuring about 540 meters/ 270 meters/ 210 meters. Hayabusa was launched into space on 9 May 2003;... |
14 April 2008
03:04 GMT |
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It is widely known that ancient space rocks floating through the solar system are amongst the oldest bodies in the solar system. Meteorites found on Earth are proof for this. However, now astronomers using the Mauana Kea telescope in Hawaii claim to have discovered three asteroids that seem to be the oldest objects i... |
21 March 2008
05:46 GMT |
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The object now known as 2008 EB61 has been officially classified by the International Astronomical Union as the latest found asteroid. The discovery was made by Ryan Gallagher and Robbyn Kindle from the Forest Hill and North Richland Hills respectively, on March 9, after spotting a small feature of a unidentified spa... |
18 March 2008
06:17 GMT |
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Add water, a mix of complex chemical substance, sunlight and you might eventually end up creating life. And don't forget about adding meteorites! Only if things were so easy. Previously, scientists believed that the primordial soup, from which the first living being emerged, was formed of ingredients found only ... |
13 March 2008
11:20 GMT |
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They are out there, we know what kind of destruction their capable of, however we have also been lucky enough not have such an object forming in the vicinity of our solar system. Or haven't we? Our biggest threat right now, however, doesn't come from black holes, death rays of any kind or other impending di... |
11 March 2008
07:02 GMT |
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A pretty small prize, one would say, especially considering the implications of a large asteroid hitting the Earth in the near future. We may at least stay calm until the day of 13. April 2036, that is. This is the date when the largest asteroid orbiting through the close vicinity of the Earth may execute a fly-by ar... |
27 February 2008
07:01 GMT |
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We've actually come to know more about the 2007 WD 5 asteroid than about that other big hunk of rock that passed near Earth about two days ago. How is this even possible, all of a sudden Mars is more important to us than Earth? I mean, we only found out about 2007 TU24 two days before the asteroid made a flyby ... |
31 January 2008
07:36 GMT |
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Yesterday, the asteroid 2007 TU 24 passed through the vicinity of our planet at a distance of only one and a half times further than the distance to the Moon, while today 2007 WD5 will make a fly-by around the planet Mars at a distance of only 26,000 kilometers. Oh... you might have noticed how both asteroid's n... |
30 January 2008
06:39 GMT |
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The discovery of the asteroid 2007 TU24 represents for astronomers a golden opportunity to learn more about these rogue bodies, as it will pass about 534,000 kilometers over the surface of the Earth. From 27th to 28th of January and from 1st to 4th of February, the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico will make d... |
26 January 2008
04:25 GMT |
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The Stardust mission brings surprising new evidence once again. After the initial sample analysis revealed that most of the material inside comet Wild 2 originated in the inner regions of the solar system, now scientists have shown that, against general belief that comets are fluffy dust objects, they could instead h... |
25 January 2008
03:46 GMT |
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All of a sudden, it started raining with asteroids! No wonder, astronomers estimate that there are about 7,000 such rocks, discovered and undiscovered, orbiting around the Sun and periodically coming through the vicinity of the Earth. Because they are so small in size, many less than 150 meters in diameter, astronome... |
25 January 2008
02:49 GMT |
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After nearly two months of observations on the trajectory of asteroid 2007 WD5, astronomers finally succeeded in calculating the exact trajectory of the object which only a few days ago had a chance of 1 in 28 to hit the Red Planet. Asteroid 2007 WD5, discovered on November 30 last year, is now expected to pass thro... |
9 January 2008
02:34 GMT |
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No wonder NASA received funding cuts for its Near Earth Object program, as it seems they are spending a lot of money on nothing. The threat at which NASA is exposing the human race to got updated in late November last year when asteroid 2007 WD5 was discovered. Upon calculating the trajectory of the object through th... |
4 January 2008
03:50 GMT |
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Now, we consider that the outer solar system lies somewhere beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune, meaning for example the Kuiper belt, thought to be the source of the short-period orbit comets, and the Oort cloud lying more than one light year away from the Sun, which could probably be the location where long-peri... |
3 January 2008
05:39 GMT |
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The asteroid responsible for the Geminid meteor shower which takes place every December, 3200 Phaethon, made its closest passing through the vicinity of the planet Earth since its discovery in 1983. The event, which took place on the 10th of December last year, was anticipated by the Arecibo Observatory, which point... |
3 January 2008
04:39 GMT |
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The past civilizations on Earth mostly regarded the comets as messengers of destruction and rarely as bringers of good or prosperity, while the scientists today think they might have played a key role in the formation of our planet and view them as carriers of possible information about the galaxy, and the formation ... |
27 December 2007
05:15 GMT |
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If an asteroid hits the Red Planet, it could be the second time in history when humanity witnesses a collision between a celestial body and a planet in the solar system, other than the Earth, since the event in 2004 when the broken comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 intersected the orbit of Jupiter, creating giant fireballs in i... |
21 December 2007
02:29 GMT |
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When it comes to asteroids size really doesn't mater, as they can hit Earth's atmosphere with forces similar to those of bigger cousins. This information is even more baffling when you take into consideration that in our effort to detect the biggest threats posed by asteroids to Earth we have been unable to... |
19 December 2007
05:00 GMT |
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This year, the Geminid Meteor Shower will peak on the night of 13-14 December, and is thought to make quite a show on the night sky, or as astronomers David Levy and Stephen Edberg would say, 'if you haven't seen a Geminid fireball, then you haven't seen a meteor'. This particular meteor shower ge... |
7 December 2007
10:10 GMT |
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Everything is fine on planet Earth. Well... not really. Not only that we commit suicide every day, by dumping enormous quantities of green house effect gases into our atmosphere, amongst other several problems, but we have no clear viable plan to handle the threat posed by the asteroid in the vicinity of our planet, ... |
29 November 2007
08:22 GMT |
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The planets and the moons in the solar system often get pounded by differently sized objects, creating large cracks and craters on their surface. These energetic impacts are often due to the moon's regular motion and spinning. To better understand the effect that these events have on the motion of a planet or mo... |
26 November 2007
09:07 GMT |
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Last weekend, the Minor Planet Center announced they detected a Near Earth Object that would miss the Earth only by 5,600 kilometers. The newly discovered object, has been given an official name by the MPC, run by Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. 2007 VN84 was tracked by a number of astronomers around the world... |
13 November 2007
03:50 GMT |
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