Despite serious technical set backs, Japan’s spacecraft, Hayabusa (meaning Falcon), is finally heading back to Earth with its precious cargo of space rock.
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UK school children have named an asteroid they discovered using the Faulkes Telescope on Hawaii.
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Scientists have studied bubble-like globules in the freshest meteorite ever discovered and believe it may help us to determine the way life evolved from organic compounds to living cells.
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NASA has decided to extend its Deep Impact mission to allow the remaining part of the spacecraft to visit comet Boethin. Deep Impact hit the news last July when the impactor section of the two-part spacecraft was crashed into comet Tempel-1.
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Comet C/2006 M4, dubbed comet SWAN, has thrown out gas from its nucleus making it bright enough for observers in the northern hemisphere to view easily with binoculars.
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Members of the International Astronomical Union are currently meeting in Prague to decide on an official definition of a planet. Their decision could see the Solar System’s ninth planet Pluto downgraded or other objects upgraded in status.
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An amateur Polish astronomer has recently spotted the 1000th sungrazing comet in images from the SOHO spacecraft. These comets pass extremely close to the Sun and are known as Kreutz comets.
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Professor Jack Meadows, former Head of Astronomy and History of Science at the University of Leicester, has had an asteroid named after him in honour of his contribution to Solar System research.
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In the early hours of Monday morning an asteroid will travel past the Earth at a distance similar to that of the Moon. The asteroid, which could be up to 820 metres wide, will pose no threat to Earth.
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Data from Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft suggests asteroid Itokawa, which the craft visited last year, is a pile of loosely held rocks. The news comes as Japanese scientists announce that the craft looks likely to make the return journey back to Earth.
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American scientists have found what appears to be a 480 kilometre-wide asteroid crater beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
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The remains of an asteroid that crashed into Earth creating a 160 kilometre-wide crater have been discovered in Africa. Large asteroids were previously thought to completely melt or vaporise on impact, but this finding proves fragments can survive impacts
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Over the next few days astronomers will have a ringside seat to watch comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 as it disintegrates in front of their eyes.
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American researchers have discovered the remnants of the largest crater in the Saharan desert. The crater is around 31 kilometres wide, and may have been formed by an asteroid, tens of millions of years ago.
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Astronomers have discovered that a binary pair of ‘asteroids’ orbiting near Jupiter are actually more like comets, and may have originated from the outer Solar System.
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last updated on 13/05/08
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