Treaties meant to ensure sustainability in space don’t currently regulate private companies, and not every country has signed on to an agreement for sustainable space exploration.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test successfully showed that it is possible to crash a spacecraft into a small asteroid. Whether the approach could save Earth from a future threat remains to be seen.
Adriana Errico, University of Southern Queensland; Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland, and Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland
The unusual planetary system has a host star orbited by two giants. One has an incredible odd route around its star. And the other (unlike our own gas giants) is hellishly hot.
The Moon illusion is what makes the Moon look giant when you see it rising over a distant horizon. An astronomer explains what causes this awe-inspiring trick of the mind.
NASA has only mapped 40% of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could crash into Earth. New projects will boost that number, and upcoming missions will test tech that could prevent collisions.
In the search for the hypothetical Planet Nine, scientists may have uncovered another explanation for the patterns in the orbits of Kuiper Belt objects.