Two comets that will safely fly past Earth later this month may have more in common than their intriguingly similar orbits. They may be twins of a sort. Comet P/2016 BA14 was discovered on Jan. 22, 2016, by the University of Hawaii’s PanSTARRS telescope on Haleakala, on the island of Maui. It was initially thought […]
Just weeks before the historic encounter of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) with Mars in October 2014, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft entered orbit around the Red Planet. To protect sensitive equipment aboard MAVEN from possible harm, some instruments were turned off during the flyby; the same was done for other Mars […]
On Tuesday, March 8th, the earth will again experience the fly-by of 2013 TX68, a 100-foot in diameter asteroid discovered in 2013, when it passed by our planet that year. Once again, that asteroid is expected to pass by earth safely without posing a threat. It is estimated to pass the planet at a distance of approximately 3 […]
Astronomers and space enthusiasts will have a rare opportunity to study a visitor from deep space, when it flies by Earth Monday night, January 26. An asteroid named 2004 BL86 will pass close to us… but still at a safe distance of about three times as far as the moon. BL86 is estimated to be […]