News

Halloween asteroid’s close fly-by a treat for radar astronomers

NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. Only discovered sixteen days ago, the 400-metre-wide asteroid will fly past Earth at a safe distance slightly farther than the Moon’s orbit on 31 October at 5:05pm GMT.

News

Tracking a mysterious group of asteroid outcasts

High above the plane of our solar system, near the asteroid-rich abyss between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, scientists have found a unique family of space rocks. These interplanetary oddballs are the Euphrosyne (pronounced ew-FROZ-i-nee) asteroids, and by any measure they have been distant, dark and mysterious — until now.