On February 22, 1906, German astrophotographer Max Wolf helped reshape our understanding of the solar system. Again. Born in 1863, Wolf had a habit of…
Phobos and Deimos are the remains of a larger Martian moon that was disrupted between 1 and 2.7 billion years ago, say researchers from the…
On April 7, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will give asteroid Bennu one last glance before saying farewell. Before departing for Earth on May 10, the OSIRIS-REx…
On May 10, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will say farewell to asteroid Bennu and begin its journey back…
Scientists inferred Bennu’s sojourn in the inner Solar System at 1.75 million years. Last year NASA snagged a sample from the surface of asteroid Bennu,…
Rocks on Ryugu, a “rubble pile” near-Earth asteroid recently visited by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, appear to have lost much of their water before they came…
On December 10, 2020 (Hawaiʻi Standard Time), the Subaru Telescope imaged the small asteroid 1998 KY26, the target of Hayabusa2’s extended mission. The positional data…
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has confirmed that the gas collected from the sample container inside the re-entry capsule of the asteroid explorer, Hayabusa2,…
Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and…
Just weeks after NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a successful touch-and-go grab of samples from asteroid Bennu, researchers at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are looking…
New clues lead to a better understanding of the evolution of the solar system and the origin of Earth as a habitable planet. In a…
On December 6 local time (December 5 in the United States), Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 dropped a capsule to the ground of the Australian Outback from…
One Friday evening in 1992, a meteorite ended a more than 150 million-mile journey by smashing into the trunk of a red Chevrolet Malibu in…
The team behind ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defense congratulates JAXA for returning Hayabusa2’s capsule to Earth laden with pristine asteroid samples. They look…
A Japanese space mission will deliver samples collected from asteroid Ryugu in a capsule to the outback desert of Woomera in South Australia this Sunday…
The first mining experiments conducted in space could pave the way for new technologies to help humans explore and establish settlements on distant worlds, a…
Impact craters left by space debris in the boulders on asteroid Bennu’s rugged surface allowed researchers to reconstruct the history of the near-Earth object in…
This is what it looks like to punch an asteroid. Last month, NASA’s robotic spacecraft OSIRIS-REx descended toward, thumped into, and then quickly moved away…