Esther Goddard, wife of rocket pioneer Robert Goddard, gets an asteroid named after her!
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New research is offering a dramatic new way to read Dante Alighieri’s Inferno: not simply as a religious vision of Hell, but as an early attempt to imagine the effects of a catastrophic planetary impact.
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Category: Astronomy, Science
Tags: Asteroid, Impact, Poetry, dante
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Ancient asteroid craters may have been safe havens for Earth’s earliest oxygen-producing life. Scientists in South Korea have uncovered evidence suggesting that asteroid impact craters may have played an important role in the rise of oxygen-producing life on early Earth. A research team from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) discovered stromatolites [...]
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“Earthrise” photographed by astronaut William Anders in 1968 gets an asteroid named for it
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Mining asteroids for metals and fuel may enable sustainable Mars colonies by reducing reliance on Earth-based resources and lowering mission costs. Could the rocks floating through space one day help humanity survive on another world? Scientists are beginning to explore whether asteroids could provide the metals and fuel needed to make Mars habitable. I watched [...]
Impact would have been devastating if only the size were of a house
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Pope Leo XIII refounded the Vatican Observatory in 1891, astronomers from the VO met with his successor Pope Leo XIV in a private audience
Atari made it look so simple: press a few buttons to move, rotate, vanish through hyperspace, fire missiles, and boom: total asteroid destruction.
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Category: Space Systems, Engineering
Tags: UC San Diego, Asteroid, Moon, University of Arizona
LOS ANGELES – Twenty-eight years after Bruce Willis and a ragtag crew of oil drillers saved humanity from cosmic annihilation, Hollywood is finally answering the question nobody asked: What if the asteroid was actually the good guy? Touchstone Pictures announced today that “Armageddon 2: The Asteroid Strikes Back” will hit theatres in summer 2026, reuniting […]
The post Armageddon 2: Asteroid…
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The Vatican Observatory has named four asteroids after key figures in its history, including the Pope who refounded the observatory in 1891.
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The Vatican Observatory announced that an asteroid has been named in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who formally reestablished the observatory in 1891.
Keep looking up 🔭
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A meteor cluster reveals an asteroid disintegrating near the Sun. These observations help uncover hidden asteroids and explain how space objects break apart. Scientists use global camera networks to study meteors, revealing how dust and debris from comets and asteroids behave and evolve in the solar system. A 2026 study identified a new meteor cluster [...]
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Pope Leo XIII, was responsible for the re-establishment and reform of the Vatican Observatory in 1891, gets an asteroid named after him!
Humanity may be one step closer to space-mining and cosmic self-sustainability, thanks to a secret, tiny weapon: microbes.
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Category: Science
Tags: Asteroid Mining, Asteroid, Metals, Microbes
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Scientists studying samples from the asteroid Bennu have uncovered a surprisingly complex chemical landscape at the tiniest scales. A new study shows that, at an extremely small scale, organic material and minerals inside the asteroid Bennu are organized into three clearly different chemical groupings. These patterns provide important clues about how liquid water once altered [...]
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A close look inside Bennu’s rocks revealed an unexpected clue that changed the story. One of the most unexpected findings of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission was the true nature of Bennu. Instead of showing many smooth areas, as earlier Earth-based observations had suggested, the asteroid turned out to be a harsh, uneven world littered with large [...]
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A massive crater on asteroid Psyche may hold the key to whether it’s a lost planet’s core or something more complex. New simulations suggest NASA’s upcoming mission could finally solve the mystery. More than 200 years after asteroid 16 Psyche was first identified, scientists are still trying to understand how it formed. Psyche is the [...]
Mark your calendars
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Father José G. Funes, SJ, former Director of the Vatican Observatory gets an asteroid named after him!
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A bright new lunar crater detected in spacecraft images shows that asteroid impacts continue to reshape the Moon’s surface today. The Moon’s familiar surface tells a story of both ancient violence and ongoing change. While its vast dark basins formed during a period of intense bombardment billions of years ago, new impacts continue to reshape [...]
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Images from NASA’s DART mission revealed the first direct evidence that asteroids in a binary system can exchange rocks and dust. Slow moving debris from the asteroid Didymos appears to have struck its moon Dimorphos, leaving distinctive streaks scientists describe as “cosmic snowballs.” Around 15% of asteroids that pass near Earth have a smaller moon [...]
Here’s what will happen in 2032
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Tiny grains of dust from asteroid Bennu are reshaping how scientists think life’s ingredients formed in space. Scientists previously identified amino acids, the essential components of life, inside 4.6-billion-year-old rocks collected from the asteroid Bennu. These samples were brought back to Earth in 2023 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. While the discovery confirmed that life’s basic [...]
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