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By Chandan Khanna with Issam Ahmed in Washington KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, United States, Oct 12, 2023 (AFP) – It’s a world like no other: a metal-rich asteroid that could be the remnants of a small planet, or perhaps an entirely new type of celestial body unknown to science. A NASA probe is set to blast off Friday bound for Psyche, an object 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers) away that could offer clues about the […]
By Moises Avila with Issam Ahmed in Washington HOUSTON, Oct 11, 2023 (AFP) – A sample collected from the asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The discovery follows a seven-year-round-trip to the distant rock as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, which dropped off its precious payload in the Utah desert last month for painstaking scientific […]
DUGWAY, United States, Sept 24, 2023 (AFP) – A seven-year space voyage came to its climactic end Sunday when a NASA capsule landed in the desert in the US state of Utah, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected. Scientists have high hopes for the sample, saying it will provide a better understanding of the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. “Touchdown of the Osiris-Rex sample return capsule!” […]
WASHINGTON, Sept 22, 2023 (AFP) – NASA’s first mission to retrieve an asteroid sample and return it to US soil is expected to reach a perilous finale on Sunday with a descent into the Utah desert. Scientists hope the material — possibly the most ever retrieved by such a mission — will provide humanity with a better understanding on the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. The US space probe OSIRIS-REx, […]
Paris, France | AFP | Saturday 3/25/2023 by Daniel Lawler A large asteroid will safely zoom between Earth and the Moon on Saturday, a once-in-a-decade event that will be used as a training exercise for planetary defence efforts, according to the European Space Agency. The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, is estimated to be 40 to 70 metres (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size of the Parthenon, and big enough to wipe out […]
Paris, France | AFP | by Daniel Lawler The chances have plummeted that a newly-discovered asteroid with the potential to wipe out a city will hit Earth on Feb. 14, 2046, the European Space Agency said on Tuesday. The asteroid, which is named 2023 DW and is estimated to be around the size of a 50-metre Olympic swimming pool, was first spotted by a small Chilean observatory on February 26. It swiftly shot to the […]
by Huw GRIFFITH Agence France-Presse Los Angeles, United States (AFP) Bruce Willis: you can stand down. A truck-sized asteroid that suddenly loomed out of the darkness a few days ago — with the Earth in its sights — sailed harmlessly past us on Thursday, space scientists said. Despite what we’ve seen in movies like “Armageddon,” no global mission to blow it up or knock it off course with nuclear weapons was required. Instead, Asteroid 2023 […]
by Sara HUSSEIN Agence France Presse Tokyo, Japan (AFP) – The specks are tiny. No, really tiny. Smaller than the diameter of a hair. But they hold billions of years of history that reveal some of the secrets of asteroids. The three minute particles from an asteroid called Itokawa show some of these space rocks are vastly older than was thought, and are much tougher. And that could mean we need bolder ways to prevent […]
Paris, France (AFP) — The asteroid is flying through space in the grainy black and white video, when suddenly a massive cloud of debris sprays out in front of it, meaning only one thing: impact. Astronomers have hailed this early footage of the first time humanity deliberately smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, saying it looks like it did a “lot of damage”. That would be good news, because NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) […]
by Issam AHMED Agence France Presse Laurel, United States (AFP) — NASA’s DART mission to test deflecting an asteroid using “kinetic impact” with a spaceship is just one way to defend planet Earth from an approaching object — and for now, the only method possible with current technology. The operation is like playing billiards in space, using Newton’s laws of motion to guide us. If an asteroid threat to Earth were real, a mission might […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – “The Enigma”, the world’s largest known cut diamond at 555 carats, went under the hammer in London on Wednesday for £3.16 million ($4.3 million, 3.8 million euros) having recently gone on display for the first time. The rare black, or carbanado, diamond is believed to have been created when a meteorite or an asteroid hit Earth more than 2.6 billion years ago. The 555.55 carat, 55-faced diamond reached £3.16 million, excluding the […]
by Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA is preparing to launch a mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid — a test run should humanity ever need to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is a real proof-of-concept experiment, blasting off at 10:21 pm Pacific Time Tuesday (0621 GMT Wednesday) […]
