Asteroid 2012 TC4, discovered in 2012 by PanSTARRS-1, will fly past our planet at a very close distance of 0.13 LD (~50 100 km / 31 140 miles) at 05:40 UTC on October 12, 2017. Current estimates suggest it should peak around mag +12.8 at closest approach and be…
A new, bright Kreutz 'sungrazing' comet was discovered on September 26, 2017. The comet appeared in SOHO LASCO C3 imagery around 03:06 UTC on September 26 and finished its journey around 09:00 UTC on September 27. It was recorded by both LASCO C3 and C2…
Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the farthest active inbound comet ever seen, at a whopping distance of 2.4 billion km (1.5 billion miles) from the Sun (beyond Saturn's orbit). The comet is record-breaking because it is already becoming active under the…
OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s asteroid sample return spacecraft successfully used Earth’s gravity on Friday, September 22, 2017 to slingshot itself on a path toward the Asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August. The spacecraft came within 17 237 km (10 711…
Comets that take more than 200 years to make one revolution around the Sun are notoriously difficult to study. Because they spend most of their time far from our area of the solar system, many "long-period comets" will never approach the Sun in a…
Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák will make a close approach to our planet on April 1, 2017, passing at a safe distance of 0.142 AU / 55.4 LD. This will be its closest flyby of Earth since its discovery in 1858. 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák…
For the past couple of days, Comet 2P/Encke is visible through the eyes of ESA/NASA solar observatory SOHO as it swings around the Sun. The comet made its closest approach to the Sun – perihelion – at 02:11 UTC on March 10, 2017. Encke is a periodic comet that…
A new, bright sungrazing comet appeared in SOHO LASCO C3 imagery around 17:40 UTC on March 2, 2017 and his death dive is still visible today, available to be tracked almost in real-time. The comet will hopefully appear in LASCO C2 imagery before it vaporizes. …
After more than 5 years, Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova, also known as the Green Comet, will make another close approach to Earth. It can be seen using small telescopes, but 45P has lost its tail after it passed the perihelion (closest approach to the Sun)….
The University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission will utilize the data collected during its two-year long mission to the Bennu asteroid in an attempt to search for elusive Earth-Trojan asteroids. Trojan asteroids accompany the planets during their journey around the…
