Tag: Asteroid Day
-
Happy Asteroid Day! Why we’re going out to space rocks before they come for us
An artist’s conception shows the spacecraft for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test approaching its target. (NASA / JHUAPL Illustration) Today’s 112th anniversary of a close brush with a cosmic catastrophe serves as a teachable moment about the perils and prospects posed by near-Earth asteroids. Asteroid Day is timed to commemorate a blast from space that…
-
Don’t panic: Huge, headline-grabbing asteroid has no chance of hitting us anytime soon
An artist’s conception shows asteroids zipping past Earth. (NASA Illustration) The bad news is that an asteroid of city-killing proportions is heading in our direction, but the good news is that it’ll miss us on Saturday night by 3.2 million miles. The space rock, known as 2002 NN4, generated enough scary headlines that NASA felt…
-
White House lays out updated plan for detecting (and deflecting) killer asteroids
NASA is planning missions to study how to divert a threatening asteroid, including an experiment known as DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test. (NASA Illustration) The White House has issued an updated plan that lays out the roles played by NASA and other federal agencies in anticipating threats from near-Earth objects — and makes clear…