After Seven Years Away Exploring an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx is Landing Soon with Precious Samples

Bits of pebbles and dust from the asteriod Bennu that were collected during the long journey of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft should be landing in the Utah desert later this month. The delivery will be a first for NASA -- its first sample return from an asteroid and one of a very small handful of space …

Surprising Insights Into the Asteroid Bennu’s Past, as OSIRIS-REx Prepares For a Sample-Collecting “Tag”

Long before there was an Earth, asteroids large and small were orbiting our young sun.  Among them was one far enough out from the sun to contain water ice, as well as organic compounds with lots of carbon.  In its five billion years or so as an object,  the asteroid was hit and broken apart …

Asteroid Remains Around Dead Stars Reveal the Likely Fate of Our Solar System

June 30th has been designated “Asteroid Day” to promote awareness of these small members of our solar system. But while asteroids are often discussed in the context of the risk they might pose to the Earth, their chewed up remains around other stars may also reveal the fate of our solar system. It is 6.5 …

Ceres, Asteroids And Us

For most of us, asteroids exist primarily as a threat.  An asteroid that landed around the Yucatan peninsula, after all, is generally considered to have set into motion the changes that resulted in the elimination of the dinosaurs. Other large in-coming asteroids laid waste to swaths of Siberia in 1908, dug the world's largest crater …