Space Station Threshold

A prototype telescope with an enhanced ability to find moving objects will soon be operational, and its mission will be to detect asteroids and comets that could someday pose a threat to Earth. The system is called Pan-STARRS (for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) located on Haleakala mountain in Maui,Hawaii, and is the [...]

The astronomy world buzzed in the Fall of 2007 when Comet Holmes – a normally humdrum, run-of-the-mill comet — unexpectedly flared and erupted. Its coma of gas and dust expanded away from the comet, extending to a volume larger than the Sun. Professional and amateur astronomers around the world turned their telescopes toward the [...]

A strange Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) has been discovered orbiting the Sun in the wrong direction. The object, designated as 2008 KV42 but nicknamed Drac (after Dracula, as vampires are fabled to have the ability to walk on walls), has a highly inclined orbit of 103.5°. Drac is a rarity as very few objects in [...]

A frequent plot device in the old "Mission: Impossible" television show was the special masks the IMF team used so they could impersonate anyone. Viewers were often surprised to find out who ended up being an imposter. Likewise, astronomers and planetary scientists are considering that a fair amount of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) [...]

I wanted to see it myself before I said anything - but now it's confirmed. Comet W1 Boattini is now visible in the northern hemisphere! So what if you have to get up before dawn? While its overall brightness is good enough to be seen with the unaided eye, I needed a [...]

On June 25th, the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft discovered its 1,500th comet, making it more successful than all other comet discoverers throughout history, combined. But wait a minute, SOHO is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, designed to study solar physics. What’s it doing looking for comets? SOHO just happens to have a great vantage [...]

Astoundingly, about 40,000 tons of dust particles fall to Earth each year which originates from space "leftovers," mostly from disintegrating comets and asteroid collisions. Scientists are very interested in this dust because of its pristine nature –it is made of the original building blocks of the solar system. Some of that dust ...

There are just so many ways the Universe is out to get us. Astronomers have already considered the threat from our Sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way. When our Sun rises up out of flat plane of the Milky Way, it appears we might be less protected from intergalactic radiation and cosmic [...]

Who can forget last October, when astronomers all over the world were astounded by the huge outburst of Comet Holmes? The eruption was the largest for more than a century. (Click on image to animate.) Fortunately for the world, a UK telescope was in the right place and the right time to capture [...]

Just so it's clear in your mind: comets are dirty snowballs, asteroids are rocks. Got the difference? Wait… not so fast. Scientists studying the cometary dust picked up by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, and they're finding it's surprisingly asteroid like. When Stardust flew past comet Wild 2 in 2006, scientists knew they ...