All posts tagged: asteroid

Near-Earth asteroid not an asteroid at all

Near-Earth asteroid not an asteroid at all

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Anyone can mistake an identity, even astronomers. On August 28, 2025, researchers aimed their equipment towards an area of sky where they expected to find the asteroid 1998 SH2. Based on gravitational data collected during its previous 4.5 year orbits around the sun, the hopeful observers focused NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) planetary radar system in the space rock’s assumed location about two million miles from Earth. However, things didn’t go as planned—1998 SH2 was a no-show. Astronomers knew some unexpected force was affecting its orbit, so they relied on optical telescopes to pinpoint the asteroid’s exact location. Once they actually found 1998 SH2, they quickly realized the mistake. “After we measured the nongravitational perturbations affecting the motion of 1998 SH2 and recognized …

NASA says they knocked asteroid off its course

NASA says they knocked asteroid off its course

Published by Sam Flores

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Trump says military targets on Iranian island ‘obliterated’ 01:15 Michigan synagogue suspect seen buying fireworks before attack 01:23 Fans gather for Dolly Parton’s return post-health struggle 00:32 Team USA sled hockey advances to gold medal game 01:22 Mayor: Michigan suspect lost family in Israeli airstrike 00:32 Judge blocks subpoenas for Fed Chair Powell 01:03 Video appears to show Michigan suspect buying fireworks 00:49 Messages show Live Nation employees joking about fees 01:06 Alysa Liu welcomed back to Oakland as hometown hero 00:41 Hegseth says Iran’s leader is ‘likely disfigured’ 00:43 Gaza suffers food shortages as Iran war escalates 00:31 Explosion rocks Tehran during Quds Day rally 00:22 Noma chef René Redzepi resigns amid abuse allegations 00:50 Red fox stows away from England to New York on cargo ship 00:19 Pickup truck narrowly misses kids at bus stop in Maryland 00:14 Trump warns Iran’s World Cup team over safety in U.S. 00:38 U.S. KC-135 refueling plane crashes in Iraq 00:48 Now …

Asteroid Behaving Strangely

Asteroid Behaving Strangely

Published by José Betancourt

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld Using early data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is set to kick off full operations later this spring, an international team of astronomers has discovered an asteroid that spins so fast, it should’ve torn itself apart. The unusual cosmic lump — dubbed 2025 MN45, 2,300 feet in diameter and located in the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter — completes a full rotation every minute and 53 seconds, as detailed in a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. While that may not sound like all that fast at first blush, it’s an astonishing feat considering the object’s sheer bulk. The centrifugal forces involved should’ve already overcome its estimated structural integrity, the researchers found, especially if it were a “rubble pile” made up of smaller rocks, like many other asteroids in the Main Belt. It’s an especially surprising finding, considering that most distant asteroids were thought to be spinning at much slower rates, as Science Alert points out. “For objects in the main …