asteroid

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Earth to Be Visited by a Halloween &#39;Skull&#39;
Earth Will
Get a Spooky
Visitor in 2018
In Case You Missed It
Dec 30, 2017 5:58 PM CST

Earth Will Get a Spooky Visitor in 2018

Skull-shaped asteroid expected to zip by in November

(Newser) - Earth will get its own Halloween decoration next year, though a little late. In mid-November, a skull-shaped asteroid will make its second flyby past Earth since it was discovered just beyond the moon in October 2015. It went on to pass by Earth on Oct. 31, 2015, prompting it to...

Scientists to Check if This 'Messenger' Comes From Aliens

Green Bank telescope will scan 'Oumuamua for signs of alien technology

(Newser) - It's unlikely that the first object found to have visited our solar system from interstellar space is carrying a message from aliens, but scientists will listen for one anyway. Beginning Wednesday, the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia will observe the mysterious cigar-shaped 'Oumuamua across four radio transmission...

Meet 'Oumuamua, Our First Guest From Another Solar System

And scientists think there could be thousands more just like it passing through

(Newser) - Houston, we have a visitor—and astronomers think there could be 10,000 more just like it "lurking" in wait, as the Guardian puts it. Meet 1I/2017 U1, or 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "messenger" or "scout"), which scientists say is an asteroid from another solar system—...

'We Are Dealing With Our 1st Truly Identified Alien Visitor'

Astronomers believe they've confirmed object arrived in our solar system from another

(Newser) - There's something strange in the solar neighborhood. "We've never seen anything like this before," Rob Weryk tells the New York Times . Earlier this month, the astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy discovered a mysterious object zipping through our solar system. Calculations show it...

Asteroid Passing Earth Thursday Won't Hit Us—Yet

'Things do hit other things, and we’re not special in that regard'

(Newser) - The Earth will be having a close call—astronomically speaking—when a 65-foot-wide asteroid buzzes past on Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reports. According to AFP , asteroid 2012 TC4 will come within 27,000 miles of Earth—about one-eighth the distance between the Earth and moon and about 5,000...

Asteroid Just Flew by Earth in Record-Setting Fashion

Astronomers get first up-close look at 'Florence'

(Newser) - There was no reason to fret, but perhaps reason to be wowed: "Florence," an asteroid stretching an estimated 2.7 miles wide, became the largest known asteroid to come as close as it did to our planet when it whizzed by Friday at 8:06am EDT. But though...

When Dinosaurs Were Killed, Earth Went Dark for 2 Years

New study shows climate effects of asteroid impact

(Newser) - When a 6-mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, it caused a devastating wave of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis that killed untold number of animals and ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Then things got really bad. In a study published Monday in PNAS , scientists...

Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs Hit in Exact Wrong Place

An impact in deep ocean would have been much less catastrophic

(Newser) - Humans might never have appeared on Earth had an asteroid 66 million years ago hit a spot other than the one it did, a new BBC documentary suggests. The asteroid that felled the dinosaurs hit a shallow sea near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, sending a dense cloud of sulfur into...

Mega Asteroid to Buzz Earth on Wednesday

Not to worry, says NASA, it's still really far away

(Newser) - Here's one less thing to worry about. A giant asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, but the folks at NASA say there is no chance it could hit us. The space rock the size of the Rock of Gibraltar, per AFP , or six NFL football fields, per CNN , will make...

Futuristic Skyscraper Is Out of This World

What if your office traveled thousands of miles a day?

(Newser) - Building from the ground up is so last century. Skyscrapers of the future could very well hang from an asteroid placed into orbit over Earth, suspended over a landscape their occupants parachute down to as part of their commute home. Sound bonkers? Wackadoo? Out of this world? Popular Mechanics uses...

NASA, FEMA Simulated Asteroid Strike on Los Angeles

In their scenario, city had 4-year warning

(Newser) - A 330-foot asteroid on a collision course with downtown Los Angeles. Four years to try to stop it—or carry out mass evacuations ahead of certain devastation. That's not the plot of an unoriginal new movie, but the scenario behind a recent NASA-FEMA exercise, the New York Times reports....

New NASA 'Scout' System Silently Keeping You Safe

"Scout" and "Sentry" systems monitor the cosmos for any asteroids that could threaten Earth

(Newser) - NASA is hard at work to protect the Earth from asteroid threats, NPR reports. The agency's new "Scout" detection system scans the skies above our planet for small, nearby objects that might enter Earth's orbit. In fact, a small one between 5 and 25 meters across will...

NASA to Chase Asteroid That Has Slight Chance of Hitting Earth

But even if Bennu does strike in 170 years, it won't be end times

(Newser) - There's an asteroid out there that might slam into Earth in about 170 years, but contrary to some recent scary-sounding headlines, it won't wipe out Earthlings if it does, reports Space.com . "We're not talking about an asteroid that could destroy the Earth," says Dante...

Death by Human Extinction Far More Likely Than by Car Crash

We should be more afraid of asteroids, pandemics, and Terminators

(Newser) - Pandemics, super-volcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, asteroids, and murderous artificial intelligence. You're not more likely to die from any one of those things than in a car crash. But put all those things together, and, well, that changes things a bit, the Atlantic reports. According to the annual Global ...

Asteroid Could Come Within 11K Miles of Earth Next Month

But NASA says there's no reason to panic

(Newser) - An asteroid could pass very close—cosmically speaking—to the Earth next month. Asteroid 2013 TX68 is scheduled to pass us by on March 5, coming as close as 11,000 miles (or a little more than the distance between Seattle and South Africa), CBS News reports. However it could...

We're Getting a Christmas Eve Asteroid

There's no danger of Asteroid 163899-Santa collision

(Newser) - After Halloween's " zombie comet ," there will be another celestial visitor on Christmas Eve, and Asteroid 163899 is about as festive as a space rock can get, which is not at all. The object—also known as 2003 SD220—will be at its closest on Dec. 24, when...

'Halloween' Space Rock Is a Dead Comet

Approaching 'space zombie' looks like a skull

(Newser) - The "Halloween asteroid" set to make its closest approach to Earth today has turned out to be something spookier: a dead comet. Scientist say object 2015 TB145 looked like an asteroid when it was first spotted a few weeks ago. but closer inspection suggests that it is a comet...

'Spooky' Asteroid Will Be Very Close on Halloween

It's moving very fast in an 'eccentric' orbit

(Newser) - In what sounds like the setup to a sci-fi horror movie, an asteroid deemed "extremely eccentric" by NASA and "strikingly spooky" by Discovery will be very close to Earth on Halloween. NASA says the asteroid, 2015 TB145, is up to 1,542 feet in diameter and will be...

Scientists to See If They Can Save Earth From Asteroid

Mission in 2022 will be a test run on preventing collision

(Newser) - Come 2022, scientists will attempt to save all of humanity from an asteroid. Calm down, it's just a trial run. The joint US-European AIDA—that's Asteroid Deflection and Assessment—mission intends to crash a probe into a 525-foot-wide asteroid known as Didymoon to see if the impact will...

NASA: The World Will Continue Past Sept. 28

Agency crushes Internet rumor that asteroid strike is coming

(Newser) - It's your prerogative should you choose to live the next month of your life like it's your last, but the majority of us will live to see October, NASA says. The words of encouragement come after Internet rumors sparked fear that an asteroid strike, allegedly due between Sept....

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