ETH Zurich isotope measurements on half a gram of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample overturn the idea that Bennu formed late and far out, and suggest it holds the original recipe for rocky planets.
JAXA says the July 5 flyby of asteroid Torifune produced the first successful laser-ranging measurement of an asteroid, a technique that sharpens the orbit predictions planetary defense depends on.
Astronomers using adaptive optics on two of the world's largest telescopes found a shape no model of asteroid formation predicts, and a faint companion nobody had seen.
The spacecraft skimmed 2,864 miles above Mars on May 15 to steal speed for its trip to a metal asteroid. The flyby doubled as a full dress rehearsal — and produced a timelapse of the Red Planet.
By reading nickel isotopes trapped in the impact debris, researchers pinned the Chicxulub catastrophe on a primitive class of meteorite that rarely reaches Earth.
Southwest Research Institute scientists link the breakup of the Eulalia parent body near a Jupiter 'escape hatch' to an ancient wave of impacts that may have reshaped early Earth's environment.
The veteran probe swept within six miles of Torifune, snapping close-ups of a snowman-shaped space rock on the first stop of its extended mission.
Close-up data from the Donaldjohanson flyby reveal a 155-million-year-old relic that tumbles like a spinning top and bears chemical traces of water.
Sifting through millions of meteor sightings, researcher Patrick Shober identified 282 fireballs that share an extreme orbit — evidence of a hidden Sun-grazing asteroid disintegrating in the inner solar system, with implications for planetary defense.
A UT Austin study using helium-3 to refine ancient sediment timelines reveals that biological recovery from the Chicxulub impact was orders of magnitude faster than previously estimated.