Planetary defense has moved from science fiction to a live engineering problem, and the stakes could not be higher. The ...

A nuclear bomb might one day deflect an asteroid and save Earth from a disaster. Here’s how the lab simulation went: Before the asteroid could threaten the peaceful blue planet below, a powerful pulse ...

Sixty-six million years ago, this asteroid crashed into Earth and wiped out most of the life on our planet. Including the biggest, baddest things that ever roamed the planet. Yeah, dinosaurs. If a ...

An asteroid named for the ancient Egyptian god of darkness and disorder may not pose a hazard to Earth, but that does not mean Earth is not a hazard to it. When asteroid 99942 Apophis flies closely ...

An asteroid was pegged to hit Earth “imminently,” according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). Fortunately, this one wasn’t big enough to land a team of deep-core drillers on, and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. An asteroid previously thought to be heading towards Earth ...

Astronomers have been keeping a close eye on an asteroid big enough to destroy a whole city. As experts learn more about asteroid 2024 YR4's trajectory, they've confirmed that the odds of impact are ...

The China National Space Administration plans to launch the asteroid sample-return mission TianWen-2 with the target being the near-Earth asteroid 2016 HO3. The TianWen-2 spacecraft mainly focuses on ...

Fig. 6. The main simulation results of TianWen-2 sampling on an asteroid regolith surface. (A) The position of mainbody in landing site frame. (B) The attitude of mainbody relative to landing site ...