Asteroid

With OSIRIS-REx in close orbit around Bennu, we’ve already seen some pretty amazing up-close shots of the asteroid. And now, NASA has released a full global map of this rocky little world in unprecedented resolution.

The Minor Planet Center has announced that Earth now has two moons. But don’t bother running outside to check – this second satellite is tiny and temporary. The newcomer, designated 2020 CD3, measures between 1.9 and 3.5 m (6.2 and 11.5 ft) wide.

Astronomers have taken the clearest-ever shots of asteroid Pallas. The new images revealed the surface of this tiny world to be heavily dotted with craters, to the point where it’s been dubbed the “golf ball asteroid.”

Scientists have identified the oldest impact site ever to scar our planet’s surface. The body that formed the Yarrabubba crater in the Australian outback struck Earth 2.229 billion years ago, and may have helped end a global ice age.

Science stands still for no one, and with a new year comes a new calendar of exciting events in spaceflight and exploration. New Atlas rounds up some of the most important milestones to look forward to in 2020.

NASA has made its final selection of the site on asteroid Bennu where the agency's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex) deep space probe will collect a sample for return to Earth.

Having nearly completed its long journey to the asteroid Bennu and collected a couple of orbital records along the way, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is now being readied for its most critical maneuver, sample collection.

ESA is asking amateur astronomers to help it plan the Hera asteroid mission scheduled to launch in less than five years. The space agency is soliciting data that will allow mission planners to identify candidate asteroids as flyby targets.

JAXA's Hayabusa2 asteroid explorer is on its way home to Earth. The unmanned deep-space probe today fired its chemical thrusters to push it away from the asteroid Ryugu at a relative velocity of 9.2 cm/s (3.6 in/s), with the successful burn confirmed by mission control shortly after.

In 2006, Pluto was downgraded from planet to dwarf planet – and now, based on the same definition an object in the asteroid belt may need to be upgraded from asteroid to dwarf planet. New observations of asteroid Hygiea suggest it fits the criteria.

About 65 million years ago, a huge asteroid slammed into the Earth and wiped out three quarters of all life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. Now, Yale researchers have found evidence that oceans became too acidic for marine animals to take.

South African researchers found new evidence supporting the hypothesis that Earth was struck by an asteroid 12,800 years ago, causing global cooling.