NASA's preparing another round asteroid defence tests, thanks to the October fly-by of a rock that may come within a cosmic whisker of the Earth. Update: The figures below were later revised by scientists. See our followup story, here. The original article continues below. Asteroid 2012 TC4 is said rock, and is between ten …

A small asteroid made a rare, close pass between Earth and the moon on August 28. 2016 QA2 is estimated by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) as being somewhere between 25 and 55 metres in diameter – so small that it nearly passed without notice. The MPC's note about the asteroid attributes its discovery to Brazil's SONEAR …

Scientists are trying to raise awareness about planet-killing chunks of flying space rock with today's Asteroid Day. Among them are ex-Queen guitar man and astrophysicist Brian May and meedja celeb Brian Cox. Asteroid Day accompanies a call for a 100-fold increase in the detection and monitoring of asteroids, called the 100x …

A study using data from monitoring stations designed to enforce a nuclear test ban treaty shows that the Earth is enduring far more dangerous asteroid impacts than previously thought. Between 2000 and 2013, the Earth was hit by 26 asteroids that exploded with a force of between one and 600 kilotons – an average of one every …

NASA has revealed fresh research on the Chelyabinsk meteorite that exploded over Russia in February, and the findings aren't good: not only does it look like the astronomic models about the number of similar-sized things reaching Earth are wrong, but also the damage they can do is much greater than expected. Chelyabinsk …

PicA chunk of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which wounded more than 1,000 people when it exploded over Russia in February, has been found and raised from its resting place 20 metres under in a lake. Chelyabinsk meteorite The Chelyabinsk meteorite in one piece, but not for long It took Russian divers a month to successfully …

VideoNot only did the Chelyabinsk bolide explosion send shock waves around the world. It also sent a plume of dust, and for the first time, such a plume has been observed by space-borne instruments. The data, captured by the Suomi NPP satellite's Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) of instruments, gave the agency a rare chance …

Spanish astronomers looking for the origins of the meteor that came scarily-close to the Russian city of Chelyabinsk last February believe they've spotted a cluster of as many as 20 objects that are possible candidates. The Chelyabinsk superbolide, which damaged buildings, caused injuries on the ground and gave rise to a …

Billions of dollars are needed to keep the Earth safe from asteroids like the one that smashed into Russia last month, experts have told the US government. Planetoid crashes into primordial Earth While NASA has made good progress cataloguing nearly 93 per cent of larger Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), smaller meteorites like the …

Astroboffins have figured out where the Chelaybinsk meteorite came from using the power of maths and videos shot by witnesses in Russia. Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin of the University of Antioquia in Colombia have come up with a preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the meteor, which smashed into the city in the …

Russian boffins have struck out on their own to find fragments of the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk on Friday morning - amid reports that pieces are fetching as much $10,000. An expedition found a crater in the ice over Lake Chebarkul, where the scientists believe pieces of the space rock landed. "The …

UpdatedUp to 500 people* are believed to be injured after a meteorite blazed through the sky and smashed into central Russia this morning. The space rock, estimated by the Russian Academy of Sciences to weigh 10 tonnes, hit the atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000km/h and is believed to have shattered around 30 to 50 km above …