Comets & Asteroids

Latest news and information about comets and asteroids

Some principles in the distribution of Centaurs and the "Scattered Disk" objects, as well as the Kuiper belt objects for its semi-major axes, eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits have been investigated.

Theory that life could have originated on an object in the asteroid belt named Ceres.

The time dependence of the changes in the emission spectra of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 after Deep Impact are derived and discussed.

Image and information about the newly discovered comet C/2009 F6 (YI-SWAN).

NASA's Swift spacecraft reveals new aspects of Comet Lulin when viewing it in X-rays and the ultraviolet.

By combining spacecraft observations with ground-based telescope observations of a comet, scientists can create a more detailed model of what is happening on the comet's surface over time.

Are you ready for the new kid on the block? Its name is Comet Yi-SWAN and it's not going to be very long before it's easily within range of small telescopes

On March 26, 2009, Korean amateur Dae-am Yi caught the small, greenish glow of a new comet with his Canon camera.

'Noise' from the LISA mission will give scientists a way to study the mass and number of near-Earth asteroids.

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.

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

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

IAU Circular No. 9038, issued on 2009 Apr 15, announces the recovery P/2003 H4 (LINEAR) = P/2009 F7 (LINEAR)

There has been plenty of debate today about the nature of the fireball spotted around 9:40 p.m. Sunday in the southern sky (as seen from Maryland). But I'm now convinced that it was a natural meteor, and not space debris.

Information about the recovery of periodic comet P/2001 MD7 (LINEAR) = P/2009 F3 (LINEAR)

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

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

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

New Scientist features editor David Cohen narrates his journey to the site of the Tunguska explosion in Siberia.