Devastation Incoming The leader of Asgardia, which styles itself as humanity’s first “space nation,” has a warning for world leaders: a life-threatening asteroid impact is “inevitable” unless we do something to stop…
Bomb Squad Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe keeps attacking the asteroid Ryugu with a vengeance. First it shot the hapless asteroid with a bullet, and then Japan’s space agency, JAXA, announced a plan to have…
A team of astronomers has identified a rare case of an asteroid spinning through space, breaking apart as it goes. The initial discovery was a happy accident. Dr Ken Smith…
Cut My Life Into Pieces A few months ago, astronomers noticed that a well-known asteroid that orbits the sun way out past Mars had sprouted a long, comet-like tail. Now, data…
Big Kaboom Last Month, Japan’s robotic spacecraft Hayabusa2 landed on an asteroid. Now, the Japanese space agency, JAXA, says that Hayabusa2 will return with an explosive vengeance. Next month, Hayabusa2 will…
Bullseye! On Feb. 22, JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully landed on a kilometer-wide asteroid called Ryugu and shot its surface with a metal bullet. Now the footage of the groundbreaking maneuver has finally…
Touchdown Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 touched down on the surface of Ryugu Friday — a kilometer-wide asteroid with an orbit that periodically brings it close to Earth as it circles the Sun. And the probe…
Space Guns The team behind Japanese space agency JAXA’s Hayabusa2 asteroid sample return mission are hard at work preparing for a groundbreaking feat: firing a bullet at an asteroid. The…
We Have a Problem Many space visionaries want to mine asteroids. But drilling in microgravity is hard, because exerting force on an asteroid will push you away from it. That’s what an inspired…
Doomsday If a killer asteroid were on course to collide with the Earth, it could be a planet-scale disaster. Just look at what happened to the dinosaurs. To determine whether…