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Two teams have found evidence of water ice on the asteroid 24 Themis; the find suggests asteroids could have delivered some water to the early Earth

Diverting incoming asteroids is a high priority item, and so is a mission to a nearby asteroid for a close-up study of its composition and a shakeout of operating technologies.

We could use lasers to zap asteroids that threaten to hit the Earth, or hit them with nuclear bombs

Asteroid 2008 TC3 hit the scene - literally? This was the first asteroid that was predicted --and predicted correctly -- to to impact the Earth

The Impact and Recovery of Asteroid 2008 TC3.\nNASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near-Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers, characterizes and computes trajectories for these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet. \n\n

Live Chat With NASA's Asteroid Trackers: The live event will air on the "NASAJPL" channel available on Ustream TV at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl on March 25 at 4:30 p.m. PDT (7:30 p.m. EDT and 23:30 UTC).

For more information about 2008 TC3 event see also: http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2009/02/2008-tc3-fragments-recovered.html

Near-Earth asteroid-comet transition object 107P/ (4015) Wilson-Harrington is a possible target of the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marco Polo sample return mission. Physical studies of this object are relevant to this mission, and also to understanding its asteroidal or cometary nature.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before.

A new study published in Nature this week reveals that asteroid surfaces age and redden faster than previously thought - in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid.

New simulations suggest the monster waves created by a small asteroid impact would break before they reached land, but you still wouldn't want to be near

Analysis of the asteroid surface density distribution of main belt asteroids

The discovery of a 2- to 3-kilometre-wide asteroid in an orbit that goes backwards has set astronomers scratching their heads. It comes closer to Earth than any other object in a 'retrograde' orbit, and astronomers think they should have spotted it before.

A newly discovered asteroid designated 2009 VA, which is only about 7 meters in size, passed about 2 Earth radii (14,000 km) from the Earth's surface Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST. This is the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.

David French, a doctoral candidate in aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University is proposing a new tool for the anti-asteroid arsenal.

Millions of asteroids are winging around the solar system, but which ones do we have to fear? Browse these images of our ominous neighbors to find out.

The Solar System often throws up surprises for astronomers, but the recent discovery of a 2- to 3-km wide asteroid called 2009 HC82 has sent observers in a spin. A retrograde spin to be precise.

If Earthlings discovered a large asteroid heading towards our planet, how would we react? But more importantly would the space agencies and/or world governments be prepared for such an event?

Due to close encounters with the inner planets, Near-Earth-Asteroids (NEAs) can have very chaotic orbits. Because of this chaoticity, a statistical treatment of the dynamical properties of NEAs becomes difficult or even impossible. We propose a new way to classify NEAs by using methods from Fuzzy Logic.

On July 10, 2010 ESA's Rosetta spacecraft imaged asteroid Lutetia within an estimated distance of 3170 kilometers.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids.

The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs and more than half of species on Earth, was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth and not massive volcanic activity, according to a comprehensive review of all the available evidence." id="metasummary