Astronomy TheFoxPosts.com

The United Arab Emirates has unveiled plans to send a spaceship to explore the galaxy’s main asteroid belt, the latest space project by the oil-rich nation after it launched the successful Hope spacecraft to Mars in 2020 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The United Arab Emirates unveiled plans Monday to send a spaceship to explore the solar system's main asteroid belt, the latest space project by the oil-rich nation after it launched the successful Hope spacecraft to Mars in 2020. Dubbed the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt, the project aims to develop a spacecraft in the coming years and then launch it in 2028 to study various asteroid s. “This mission is a follow up and a follow on the Mars mission, where it was the first mission to Mars from the region," said Mohsen Al Awadhi, program director of the Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt. "We’re creating the same thing with this mission. That is, the first mission ever to explore these seven asteroids in specific and...

minus 56 days till impact… but not quite. NASA says its automated tracking systems at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies in the U.S. state of California has detected an asteroid so big that it could wipe out the entire human race. Officially called 52768 (1998 OR2), the giant space rock is hurtling toward Earth at a speed of 31,320 km/h – or 8.7 km per second. If the asteroid keeps up this pace, it is expected to close in on our planet around January 28. But before you start running around like a headless chicken out of pure panic, hear this out: Scientists say it will only make a “close approach” and not actually enter Earth’s orbit. Approximately measuring up to 4.1 kilometers (2.5 miles) across, the rock’s size puts it in Planetary Society’s “very dangerous” category, which includes all space objects close to or larger than 1 km in diameter and puts them on a scale that threatens global destruction. “Small asteroid s – few meters – hit frequently and burn up ...

Recently, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) published a report that stated five asteroid s will approach the Earth this weekend as well as Monday. The JPL is a research development lab at the California Institute of Technology. The NASA lab discovered extraterrestrial objects via the Asteroid Watch dashboard. According to the report, the asteroids fall under the category of near-Earth objects (NEO) that are not “potentially hazardous,” meaning we can admire the passing objects without fear of where they’ll land. Asteroid 2022 QP4 zoomed past Earth early this morning at 15,534 mph at a close distance of 869,000 miles. The asteroid was 40 feet in diameter, roughly the size of the boss. NASA reported that this rock will reach Mars on December 31, 2022. There’s also asteroid 2022 QQ4 which is much larger than the former. This one is 110 feet in diameter and will approach the Earth at a distance of 3,690,000 miles on August 27. The JPL clocked in this puppy at 15,534 mph. A...