Not one but two articles in the BBC today: 4 April 2025 Nelson, S. Asteroid 2024 YR4: Where do near-Earth asteroids come from – and what can we learn form them? (sic) www.bbc.com/future/article/20250312-the-astronomers-watching-the-skies-for-asteroids Molloy, M. Chance of asteroid hitting Moon… Read More »BBC: (small-)Body Bi-Coverage
This is 100% serious. Congratulations to Drs. Glaze and Steinbring: The IAU Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN)’s Bulletin 5 issue 4 (Mar 17) (https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/files/Bulletins/V005/WGSBNBull_V005_004.pdf) has announced two asteroids: (236617) Loriglaze = 2006 JL63Discovery: 2006-05-01 / M. W. Buie… Read More »‘Few New Names
A little light listening for your weekend: the new episode of Startalk ‘radio’ (actually a podcast) will feature Rick Binzel as their guest. Startalk Radio is the podcast of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, and a comedian… Read More »Star(-like) Talk with guest Rick Binzel
Just saw this one, sorry I’m a bit slow on the ‘regurgitate’ button: The asteroid Bennu is even weirder than we thoughthttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2471749-the-asteroid-bennu-is-even-weirder-than-we-thought/
And now for something pedagogically different. In Space Science Reviews, dated 12 March (they’re all-online, no issues at all): Boonstra, S. K. Kretke, K. Garcia, D. et al. Technical STEM Workforce Development Re-Imagined: The Lucy Student Pipeline and Competency Enabler… Read More »Note, Pupils: Lucy L’SPACE Program
There’s (about to be) a new journal in the Solar System Science domain: Planetary Research. And it’s quite an intriguing lede. According to organizers, they can hold their costs down, and run an open title, without even authors’ fees. Have… Read More »New Note: Planetary Research
The launch of the Odin asteroid mission, from AstroForge, was successful. Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing we can say for sure just yet. Separation occurred, and the probe appears to be powered and transmitting, but no useful radio link… Read More »AstroForge Odin OK?
The launch of SPHEREX has been pushed back to Tuesday night. For a quick rundown of (one of) the mission’s primary drivers, see this recent article in Science. Of course, the spacecraft and its spectrometer are useful for multiple investigations,… Read More »SPHEREx science, in Science
Coming in a few short weeks: a Chinese Space Science conference. The 2025 International Conference of Deep Space Sciences will have asteroidal relevance: [ICDSS2025] SPECIAL SESSION: APOPHIS 2029Abstract deadline: March 3, 2025 The 2025 International Conference of Deep Space Sciences… Read More »‘25 Intnl. Conf. of Deep Space Sciences
Just a quick mention of the Vera Rubin Observatory in Science magazine, 27 Feb 2025 Vol 387, Issue 6737 Andy Lawrence Invisible matter, invisible brains? adw0099 This one mentions the co-directives of the project… no, it’s not all about asteroids.