planetary defense
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How Scientists Are Preparing for Apophis’s Unnervingly Close Brush With Earth
In about five years’ time, a potentially hazardous asteroid will swing by Earth at an eerily close distance of less than 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers). During this rare encounter, Apophis will be ten times closer to Earth than the Moon and scientists want to take full advantage of its visit. Apophis is a on trajectory…
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NASA Needs Ideas to Study Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Apophis
Asteroid 99942 Apophis is fast approaching our home planet for an uncomfortably close encounter in 2029. In order to prepare for the rare event, NASA is calling for ideas for low cost missions to rendezvous with Apophis, but the space agency already has a pair of asteroid probes ready to take on the task. NASA…
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NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX Brushes the Sun on Its Way to New Asteroid Target
New mission, who dis? The spacecraft formerly known as OSIRIS-REx had an impromptu close encounter with the Sun as it follows a newly crafted route to a second asteroid, using one of its solar arrays for shade. You may remember NASA’s diligent spacecraft that snagged a sample from an asteroid and dropped it off in…
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NASA Discovers Root Cause of Parachute Glitch in Asteroid Sample Landing
Inconsistent labels in the OSIRIS-REx landing plans are what caused the out-of-order parachute deployment during the return capsule’s descent to Earth on September 24, NASA stated in a release yesterday. OSIRIS-REx carried samples of the asteroid Bennu to Earth in late September—an “astrobiologist’s dream,” as Gizmodo previously reported. Bennu is a relic of the solar…