Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The chance that an asteroid capable of wiping out a city will hit Earth in eight years has been cut in half to around 1.5 percent,…
Category: Planetary Science
Ranger 8 moon photos aid in Apollo site selection
Impact sites of Rangers 7, 8 and 9. Credit: NASA / JPL Before Apollo astronauts set foot upon the moon, much remained unknown about the lunar surface. While most scientists…
‘City killer’ asteroid now has 3.1% chance of hitting Earth: NASA
This handout picture provided by NASA shows asteroid 2024 YR4 as observed by the Magdalena Ridge 2.4m telescope at the New Mexico Institute of Technology on January 27, 2025. An…
Does planetary evolution favor human-like life? Study ups odds we’re not alone
A new model upends the decades-old “hard steps” theory that intelligent life was an incredibly improbable event and suggests that maybe it wasn’t all that hard or improbable. The team…
Asteroid Ryugu samples suggest presence of salty water in outer solar system
Colorized microscopic image of sodium carbonate deposit on Ryugu sample. Credit: KyotoU/Toru Matsumoto Asteroids that orbit close to the Earth inevitably cause us some anxiety due to the even remote…
From collisions to stellar cannibalism—the surprising diversity of exploding white dwarfs
The Palomar 48 inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California with an image of the Milky Way in the background. The stars represent the number of supernovae discovered in…