Explore how the DART mission advanced planetary defense using kinetic impactor technology and impactor hardware to enable real-world asteroid deflection strategies.

In late December, a telescope in Chile discovered a small asteroid given the designation 2024 YR4. About a month later, initial observations of the asteroid, estimated to be 40 to 90 meters across, ...

To help guide NASA’s efforts over the next decade, the agency today released its Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan. For three decades, NASA has engaged in studying near-Earth objects (NEOs), ...

NASA is struggling to meet all the goals of its Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan, the effort that aims to prevent humanity being wiped out by space rocks that hit Earth.… The aerospace ...

For the first time in its history, humanity is assembling a coordinated system to find, track, and deflect asteroids that could threaten life on Earth. The architecture involves a space-based infrared ...

This article was originally featured on Undark. On a fall evening in 2022, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory were busy with the final stages of a planetary defense ...

With the increasing presence of space debris and the potential risk posed by near-Earth objects (NEOs) colliding with Earth, it is important to understand ongoing and future coordination efforts for ...

Launched in 2011, NASA's NEOWISE mission operated in Earth's orbit until late last week. It detected more than 3,000 near-Earth objects or NEOs—asteroids or comets whose orbits can bring them close to ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover the history of science and exploration. On June 30, 1908, an asteroid about 65 meters wide collided with Earth’s ...

As misinformation spreads faster than ever across digital platforms, new research highlights growing risks to public understanding of planetary defense, an area of science that deals with the threat ...