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
IAU circular No. 9106, issued on 2010, Jan. 09, announces the discovery of another comet by R. E. Hill, named C/2010 A3. It was discovered with the Catalina 0.68-m Schmidt telescope + CCD in the course of the Catalina Sky Survey.
Astronomers say they have found a meteorite fragment the size of a golf ball near Hamilton, which they believe streaked across the night sky above Southern Ontario in late September.
On October 8, 2009 about 03:00 Greenwich time, an atmospheric fireball blast was observed and recorded over an island region of Indonesia. The blast is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a small asteroid about 10 meters in diameter that, due to atmospheric pressure, detonated in the atmosphere with an energy of about 50 kilotons (the equivalent of 100,000 pounds of TNT explosives).
A bright fireball has been seen over Wisconsin aroud 10:00 p.m. local time of April 14, 2010. The fireball has been seen from Wisconsin to Missouri. National Weather Service offices in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Davenport and Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri all received numerous reports.
According to preliminary counts from the International Meteor Organization (IMO) the Leonids meteors reached a ZHR(max) ~ 120/130 around 22UT of Nov. 17, as predicted by forecasters.
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.
One of the most fundamental problems in the study of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) is to know their true physical size. Without knowledge of their albedos we are not able to distinguish large and dark from small and bright KBOs. Spitzer produced rough estimates of the sizes and albedos of about 20 KBOs.
Kuiper belt object 136108 Haumea is one of the most fascinating bodies in our solar system. Approximately 2000x1600x1000 km in size, it is one of the largest Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) and an unusually elongated one for its size.
In an effort to understand the origin of the Main Belt Comets (MBCs) 7968 Elst-Pizzaro, 118401, and P/2005 U1, the dynamics of these three icy asteroids and a large number of hypothetical MBCs were studied. Results of extensive numerical integrations of these objects suggest that these MBCs were formed in-place through the collisional break up of a larger precursor body.
At 9:03 pm on Friday night September 25, 2009 (01:03 UT Sept 26) seven all-sky cameras of Western's Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) recorded a brilliant fireball in the evening sky over the west end of Lake Ontario.
IAU circular No. 9078, issued on 2009, Sept. 29, announces that an asteroidal object, discovered with a 0.45-m f/2.8 reflector + CCD by the "La Sagra Sky Survey" (Spain), has been reported to show cometary features by several observers, involved in its astrometric follow-up.