The January Acta Astronautica was divided into Part A and B, don’t ask me why. Now, Part B (vol. 238, Jan 2026):
Otsuki, M. Baba, M. Imada, T. et al. Exhaustive evaluation of microgravity landing dynamics for small body exploration Pg 1-12
Ye, Q. Li, J. Vida, D. et al. Small near-Earth Objects in the Taurid Resonant Swarm Pg 285-288
Plesko, C. S. Becker, S. A. Boslough, M. B. et al. Bounding the performance of partially buried nuclear mitigation in the 2024 PDC hypothetical asteroid threat exercise scenario Pg 454-459
Lee, K. Baoyin, H. Wang, Z. Trajectories optimization for asteroid kinetic deflection missions: Potential benefits of eccentric impacts Pg 528-542
Ngwane, T. S. Erasmus, N. Groot, P. et al. The rapid-response, fully-automated, near-Earth asteroid follow-up program with the SAAO’s 1-m Lesedi telescope Pg 668-676
Boslough, M. Brown, P. G. Clark, D. et al. 2032 and 2036 risk enhancement from NEOs in the Taurid stream: Is there a significant coherent component to impact risk? Pg 710-715
The definition and validation of “exhaustive” aside, Otsuki et al. certainly plan to help. Unprepared surfaces don’t help, even on asteroids, where true microgravity (not ‘one-sixth’ Earth force) lower the stakes. Landing is- again- like docking, but we’ve screwed up dockings.
The Taurid meteor shower was found to originate from, not just one parent body, but an entire family, thought to derive from some now-lost progenitor. They all travel in a generally-similar orbit. But if Taurid meteoroids can strike Earth, forming that shower, that means other family objects can approach us, too. Studying the Taurid family then has a deeper importance. Conversely, they are reachable by inexpensive space missions.
Not to get too Hollywood, but planetary defense means both early warning, and (eventually) remedial action. The moment of truth on our action should not also be its own test; we’d better be sure. Plesko et al. try closing the loop on defensive action.
Speaking of which, kinetic impactors (e. g., DART) are both more likely and more frequent; we’ve discussed ‘one-two punch’ defense. In addition to having DART as field experience/validation data, let’s study DART-like variants too, via Lee et al.
And speaking of early warning, Vera Rubin does not close out the issue for good. Follow-up telescopes must gather more data on Rubin’s discoveries. If South Africa cannot build (or co-build) a Rubin-like search telescope, they can certainly do follow-up.
…and back to the Taurid family. Using what we know, Boslough et al. study the specific case of 2032 and 2036. Does the Earth Crossing imply Earth threat(s)?