January 3 – Moon at First Quarter – 04:46 UTC. The Moon will be prominent in the evening sky, setting around midnight. At this time in its monthly cycle of phases, it appears almost exactly half illuminated. January 4 – Quadrantid Meteor Shower. This is an…
Asteroid 2019 YV4 flew past Earth at a distance of 0.98 LD / 0.00251 AU (375 490 km / 233 319 miles) on December 25, 2019. This is the 76th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance in 2019. 2019 YV4 belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and was first…
Solar Orbiter — a joint NASA/ESA mission will launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral at 04:30 UTC on February 6 (23:30 EST, February 5). The spacecraft will provide the first views of the Sun's unexplored polar regions from high-latitudes, giving…
Russia's space agency Roscosmos revealed its plans to establish an observatory on the Moon that is capable of tracking asteroids that can potentially threaten Earth. The lunar facility will work with orbiting satellites to spot dangerous space rocks, and its…
A newly discovered asteroid designated 2019 YU2 flew past Earth at 19:28 UTC on December 23, 2019 at a distance of 0.26 LD / 0.00066 AU (98 734 km / 61 350 miles). This is the 75th known asteroid to flyby Earth since the start of the year. 2019 YU2 belongs to the…
Two newly discovered asteroids designated 2019 YS and 2019 YB flew past Earth within 1 lunar distance on December 18, 2019. Since the start of the year, our sky surveys have discovered a total of 75 <1LD asteroids. 2019 YS flew past us at a distance of 0.17 LD /…
Analysis of the impact craters on the asteroid Ryugu using Hayabusa 2's remote sensing image data has revealed the geological history of the near-Earth object. The research team, led by assistant professor Naoyuki Hirata of the Department of Planetology at Kobe…
NASA's legendary Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has observed a new type of explosion on the Sun. Called "forced reconnection," this newly-discovered phenomenon was theorized 15 years ago. The discovery is expected to help scientists understand a…
A groundbreaking survey of more than 700 000 stars near the Milky Way's heart has produced one of the most stunning images of our galaxy– astronomers studying the huge population of stars in the "nuclear disk" theorize that there were two significant…
NASA's Parker Solar Probe spotted Geminid meteor shower's dust trail from space for the first time ever. As it orbits the Sun 21 more times, the probe will help scientists examine the mysterious structure of the trail. Meteors in yearly showers such as the…
