Artist’s impression of an asteroid with Earth in the background.
Buradaki / Shutterstock
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has around a 1-in-77 chance of hitting Earth in 2032 – but there’s no need to panic.
ESA-Science Office
Ramses, a European space mission to study the asteroid Apophis, has been approved for perparatory work.
Artist’s impression of NEOWISE spacecraft.
NASA/Caltech-JPL
NASA’s enduring NEOWISE mission was just shut down. It was keeping an eye out for potentially dangerous asteroids – but we’re not left defenceless.
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
The mission provided details about how to deflect an asteroid should one threaten Earth in future.
CTIO / NOIRLab / SOAR / NSF / AURA/ T. Kareta (Lowell Observatory), M. Knight (US Naval Academy)
Five new studies show smashing spacecraft into asteroids could be a viable way to defend Earth from threatening space rocks.
Itokawa, image taken by Hayabusa in 2005.
JAXA
Rubble pile asteroids are like giant space cushions, floating around the Solar System for billions of years. Here’s what that means for planetary defence.
NASA
From space to the outback, meteorite-tracking tools are building the knowledge we need to prepare for a future asteroid impact.
NASA/ESA/STScI/Hubble
DART has forever changed the orbit of a small asteroid – and done so with much greater success than expected.
Illustration of DART before impact.
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
The first ever planetary defence test is about to take place 11 million kilometres from Earth. All we can do is wait and see.