Ancient Asteroid

Gaia’s recent data release reveals that over 350 asteroids, once believed to be solitary, have hidden moons. This discovery nearly doubles the known binary asteroid systems, highlighting Gaia’s ability to find new asteroid-moon pairs. The detailed observations from Gaia’s DR3 release offer a glimpse into the early solar system and asteroid fo...

The study suggests these ancient creatures were thriving until the asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

The image shows a canister, which is a gray metal cylinder. Inside, dark, powdery asteroid sample material can be seen.

NASA on Friday launched a spacecraft from Florida on its way to Psyche, the largest of the several metal-rich asteroids known in our solar system and a body thought to be the remnant core of an ancient protoplanet.

Examining samples from asteroid Ryugu, scientists have made a startling discovery. They have spotted microscopic grains of ancient materials that are even older than our Solar System. Located in the near-Earth solar orbit, asteroid Ryugu is shaped like a spinning top and orbits the Sun every 16 months.

A team of researchers from Australia's Curtin University studied the chemical and physical properties of the Black Beauty meteorite to determine the location of its origin on Mars. The chemical composition of Black Beauty suggested that Mars also had volcanic activity like Earth. The team concluded that the meteorite originated from one of the olde...

New observations suggest a celestial object tracking Earth's orbit just about 9 miles (14.5km) away from the planet is a fragment of the Moon. Astronomers say the fragment was tossed into space possibly after an ancient lunar collision.

NASA's upcoming mission to explore asteroids in order to learn about the earliest era of our solar system is ready to launch. The spacecraft named Lucy is expected to take off this week on a mission that is estimated to take 12 years.

Sixty-six million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into a shallow sea near Mexico. The impact carved out a 90-mile-wide crater and flung mountains of earth into space. Earthbound debris fell to the planet in droplets of molten rock and glass.

For the past two years, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has sailed across the solar system by the light of the stars. Like ancient mariners and the Apollo astronauts, it needed the constancy of the constellations to navigate the dark unknown. All that changed Monday, when the NASA probe finally reached its target, an Empire State Building-sized asteroid ...

Two years after launching from Florida, a NASA spacecraft is closing in on an ancient asteroid, Bennu, for a sample of space dust that could reveal clues to the start of life in the solar system.

What happened to the dinosaurs and other ancient animals that roamed the Earth alongside them is a question that has fascinated scientists for centuries. While experts have solid theories for some of the most major extinction events in Earth's history (an asteroid hitting the planet about 65 million years ago is a popular scapegoat, for instance), ...

A strike from a big asteroid more than 300 million years ago left a huge impact zone buried in Australia and changed the face of the earth, researchers said on Friday.

Gaia’s recent data release reveals that over 350 asteroids, once believed to be solitary, have hidden moons. This discovery nearly doubles the known binary asteroid systems, highlighting Gaia’s ability to find new asteroid-moon pairs. The detailed observations from Gaia’s DR3 release offer a glimpse into the early solar system and asteroid fo...

The study suggests these ancient creatures were thriving until the asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

The image shows a canister, which is a gray metal cylinder. Inside, dark, powdery asteroid sample material can be seen.

NASA on Friday launched a spacecraft from Florida on its way to Psyche, the largest of the several metal-rich asteroids known in our solar system and a body thought to be the remnant core of an ancient protoplanet.

Examining samples from asteroid Ryugu, scientists have made a startling discovery. They have spotted microscopic grains of ancient materials that are even older than our Solar System. Located in the near-Earth solar orbit, asteroid Ryugu is shaped like a spinning top and orbits the Sun every 16 months.

A team of researchers from Australia's Curtin University studied the chemical and physical properties of the Black Beauty meteorite to determine the location of its origin on Mars. The chemical composition of Black Beauty suggested that Mars also had volcanic activity like Earth. The team concluded that the meteorite originated from one of the olde...

New observations suggest a celestial object tracking Earth's orbit just about 9 miles (14.5km) away from the planet is a fragment of the Moon. Astronomers say the fragment was tossed into space possibly after an ancient lunar collision.

NASA's upcoming mission to explore asteroids in order to learn about the earliest era of our solar system is ready to launch. The spacecraft named Lucy is expected to take off this week on a mission that is estimated to take 12 years.

Sixty-six million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into a shallow sea near Mexico. The impact carved out a 90-mile-wide crater and flung mountains of earth into space. Earthbound debris fell to the planet in droplets of molten rock and glass.

For the past two years, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has sailed across the solar system by the light of the stars. Like ancient mariners and the Apollo astronauts, it needed the constancy of the constellations to navigate the dark unknown. All that changed Monday, when the NASA probe finally reached its target, an Empire State Building-sized asteroid ...

Two years after launching from Florida, a NASA spacecraft is closing in on an ancient asteroid, Bennu, for a sample of space dust that could reveal clues to the start of life in the solar system.

What happened to the dinosaurs and other ancient animals that roamed the Earth alongside them is a question that has fascinated scientists for centuries. While experts have solid theories for some of the most major extinction events in Earth's history (an asteroid hitting the planet about 65 million years ago is a popular scapegoat, for instance), ...

A strike from a big asteroid more than 300 million years ago left a huge impact zone buried in Australia and changed the face of the earth, researchers said on Friday.