Like many of his colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3-D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system.


This spectacular image of comet Tempel …

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Chris Lewicki’s (President of Planetary Resources) latest update contains some details on Planetary Defense, a big announcement about a new investor and partner, and advance notice of a special event next week.

I’m at the 3rd International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff, AZ this week.  The conference gathers experts from around the world to discuss our …

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NASA and international researchers have discovered that Earth’s moon has more in common than previously thought with large asteroids roaming our solar system.


Scientists have now discovered that studying meteorites from the giant asteroid Vesta helps them understand the event known as the “lunar cataclysm,” when a repositioning of the gas giant planets destabilized a portion of the asteroid belt …

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A newly discovered asteroid the size of a football field will cruise through Earth’s neighborhood this weekend (March 9th), just days after another space rock made an even closer approach to our planet.

The 330-foot-wide (100 meters) asteroid 2013 ET will miss Earth by 600,000 miles (960,000 kilometers) when it zips by on Saturday (March 9). The space rock flyby …

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A space rock a few metres across exploded in Earth’s atmosphere above the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia today at about 03:15 GMT. The numerous injuries and significant damage remind us that what happens in space can affect us all. At least 950 people were injured as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings. Most of those hurt, in the …

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NASA

NASA Television will provide commentary starting at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST / 7 p.m. UTC) on Friday, Feb. 15, during the close, but safe, flyby of a small near-Earth asteroid named 2012 DA14. NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. This flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to …

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On February 15 near-earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will come so close to Earth that it will pass inside the orbits of the geostationary satellites. The asteroid, which is about 45-50 metres (148-165 feet) in diameter will pass about 33,600 km (21,000 miles) from the center of the Earth, or about 27,200 km (17,000 miles) above the surface.


Plot of Asteroid …

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This is a press release from Chris Lewicki, the President and Chief Asteroid Miner at Planetary Resources:

In the accompanying video, you can see one of our full scale Arkyd-100 mechanical prototypes.  The Arkyd-100 is our space telescope and technology demonstrator for our Arkyd Series prospecting missions.

One of the earliest decisions we made was to design and build …

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A space rock several hundred metres across is heading towards our planet and the last-ditch attempt to avert a disaster – an untested mission to deflect it – fails. This fictional scene of films and novels could well be a reality one day. But what can space agencies do to ensure it works?


The US-European Asteroid Impact and Deflection mission …

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ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory captured asteroid Apophis in its field of view during the approach to Earth on 5/6 January 2013. This image shows the asteroid in Herschel’s three PACS wavelengths: 70, 100 and 160 microns, respectively. Its closest pass, on 9 January 2013, brings it to 14.45 million km from Earth, 35–40 times that of the distance of the …

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