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Careful engineering of low, plant-covered hills along shorelines can mitigate tsunami risks with less disruption of coastal life and lower costs compared to seawalls. In tsunami preparedness, it turns out there can be strength in beauty. Rows of green hills strategically arranged along coastlines ca...

Nearly two decades ago, a near-Earth asteroid was discovered to have a moon, and the binary system was given the name “Didymos” — Greek for “twin,” a loose description of the larger main body and the smaller orbiting moon, which became unofficially known as Didymos B. In 2022, that moon will be...

The destination of ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defense – a tiny asteroid moonlet – has finally received its official name. After years of informal nicknames and temporary designations, the smaller of the Didymos asteroid pair has been formally christened ‘Dimorphos’ by the International Astrono...

Today ESA awarded a €129.4 million (US $153.4 million) contract covering the detailed design, manufacturing, and testing of Hera, the Agency’s first mission for planetary defense. This ambitious mission will be Europe’s contribution to an international asteroid deflection effort, set to perform sust...

The interplanetary interloper won’t come closer than 1.25 million miles to Earth, but it will present a valuable scientific opportunity for astronomers. The largest asteroid predicted to pass by our planet in 2021 will be at its closest on March 21, providing astronomers a rare opportunity to get a ...

During the week of April 26, members of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) will participate in a “tabletop exercise” to simulate an asteroid impact scenario. The exercise depicting this fictional event is being led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near...

In an alternate reality playing out at this year’s International Planetary Defense Conference, a fictional asteroid crashes over Europe, ‘destroying’ a region about 100 km wide near the Czech Republic and German border. The scenario was imagined, but the people who took part are very rea...

The infrared space telescope is designed to help advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts. NASA has approved the Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) to move to the next phase of mission development after a successful mission review, authorizing the mission to move forward into ...

Is Planetary Defense PI in the Sky? In February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV. Little did they realize a...

Nuclear disruption could shatter an incoming asteroid and deflect nearly all fragments, proving a viable last-resort planetary defense. If an asteroid is determined to be on an Earth-impacting trajectory, scientists typically want to stage a deflection, where the asteroid is gently nudged by a relat...

NASA launched DART to crash into an asteroid and test planetary defense strategies. Lighting up the California coastline early in the morning of November 24, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft off the planet to begin its one-way trip to crash i...

NASA’s latest launch into outer space is going to make an impact. In fact, that’s its entire mission. DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which launched at 10:21 p.m. PST on November 23 out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is NASA’s first planetary defense mission. This mission will ...

The new system improves the capabilities of NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies to assess the impact risk of asteroids that can come close to our planet. To date, nearly 28,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have been found by survey telescopes that continually scan the night sky, adding ne...

A space security expert explains NASA’s plans to prevent a potential catastrophe. The Earth exists in a dangerous environment. Cosmic bodies, like asteroids and comets, are constantly zooming through space and often crash into our planet. Most of these are too small to pose a threat, but some can be...

NASA and the U.S. Space Force have released bolide data to enhance planetary defense, offering new insights into asteroid behavior and impact prediction. Hosted by JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, the data can be used by the science community to better understand how asteroids break up wh...

Over 100 participants from 18 countries – including NASA scientists and the agency’s NEOWISE mission – took part in the international exercise. We know that asteroids have struck the Earth in the past with devastating consequences, such as the asteroid 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosau...

University of Bern Researchers Simulate Planetary Defense The world’s first comprehensive planetary defense test against potential asteroid impacts on Earth is being conducted by NASA as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) project. Researchers from the University of Bern and th...

Trying to impact an asteroid is a bold and complex undertaking. JPL is there to assist with navigators, communications, and more. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission has the challenging goal of crashing its spacecraft into a small asteroid on Monday, September 26. Its target is Di...

NASA’s First Planetary Defense Mission Succeeds After 10 months of flying through space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, September 26, 2022. It was NASA’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space and the world’s first planetary de...

NEO Surveyor, an infrared telescope launching by 2028, will enhance NASA’s ability to detect hazardous near-Earth objects, advancing planetary defense. NASA officials have confirmed NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) – the next flight mission out of the agency’s Planeta...

ESA’s Hera mission, launching in 2024, will study Dimorphos after NASA’s DART impact. One of last year’s space highlights was the NASA DART mission’s collision with Dimorphos (seen right in the animation above), the small moon of the binary asteroid Didymos (seen left). The impact measurably sh...

Rubble-pile asteroid Itokawa’s shock-absorbent structure makes it extremely durable, surviving over 4 billion years. Curtin University-led research into the durability and age of an ancient asteroid made of rocky rubble and dust, revealed significant findings that could contribute to potentially sav...

Seventh Shooting Star Ever Spotted Before Impact For the seventh time, a small asteroid – a meteoroid as astronomers call it – was discovered in space as it raced towards Earth for impact. The predicted time and location of the impact (02:50 – 03:03 UTC, above northern France) were made possib...

The Chelyabinsk Impact: A Wake-Up Call for Planetary Defense On February 15, 2013, the people of Chelyabinsk, Russia, experienced a shocking event, and yet it was a small fraction of the devastation an asteroid on a collision course with Earth could yield. As NASA’s Planetary Defense experts reflect...