Earth Flyby of 'Space Peanut' Captured in New Video (1999 JD6) July 31, 2015

NASA scientists have used two giant, Earth-based radio telescopes to bounce radar signals off a passing asteroid and produce images of the peanut-shaped body as it approached close to Earth this past weekend. The images show the rotation of the asteroid, named 1999 JD6, which made its closest approach on July 24 at 9:55 p.m. PDT (12:55 a.m. EDT on July 25) at a distance of about 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometers, or about 19 times the distance from Earth to the moon).

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Asteroid Icarus will safely pass by Earth at more than 21 times the distance of Earth to the moon on June 16. To put it another way, Icarus, one of the first near-Earth asteroids ever discovered (1949), will approach no closer than five million miles away (eight million kilometers).

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An asteroid, designated 1999 FN53, will safely pass more than 26 times the distance of Earth to the moon on May 14. To put it another way, at its closest point, the asteroid will get no closer than 6.3 million miles away (10 million kilometers). It will not get closer than that for well over 100 years. And even then, (119 years from now) it will be so far away it will not affect our planet in any way, shape or form. 1999 FN53 is approximately 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) across.

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NASA announced more details on its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. NASA also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago. For ARM, a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars.

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On January 18, 2015 - a little over four years since the NHATS assessments began - the 1332nd NHATS-compliant asteroid was identified, doubling the number of known accessible NEAs.

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Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest approach today (Jan. 26, 2015) at 8:19 a.m. PST (11:19 a.m. EST) at a distance of about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers, or 3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon), has its own small moon.

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Updated Animation (January 30, 2015)

New orbital chart and star charts are now available.

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An asteroid, designated 2004 BL86, will safely pass about three times the distance of Earth to the moon on January 26. From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about a third of a mile (0.5 kilometers) in size. The flyby of 2004 BL86 will be the closest by any known space rock this large until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past Earth in 2027.

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Some recent press reports have suggested that an asteroid designated 2014 UR116 represents an impact threat to the Earth. The asteroid does not represent a threat because it's orbital path does not pass sufficiently close to the Earth's orbit.

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Small asteroids near Earth, with sizes of only about a meter, hit the atmosphere and disintegrate with surprising frequency - around every other week, new data show.

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Small meteorite impact reported in Nicaragua is unrelated to Asteroid 2014 RC. 2014 RC has a rotation rate of 15.8 seconds - the fastest rotating asteroid ever observed.

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A small asteroid, designated 2014 RC, will safely pass very close to the Earth on Sunday, 7 September 2014. From its brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about 20 meters (60 feet) in size

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Agency officials announced on Thursday, June 19, recent progress to identify candidate asteroids for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), increase public participation in the search for asteroids, and advance the mission's design.

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NASA scientists using Earth-based radar have produced sharp views of a recently discovered asteroid 2014 HQ124 as it slid silently past our planet. The new views are some of the most detailed radar images of a near-Earth asteroid ever obtained.

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A large newfound asteroid - 2014 HQ124 - will safely pass Earth on June 8 from a distance of about 777,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers), more than three times farther away than our moon.

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NASA is sponsoring a series of virtual seminars on the properties of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and what is being done to learn more about the hazards and the opportunities they may pose for us here on Earth.

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Recent observations have removed from NASA's asteroid impact hazard list the near-Earth object (NEO) known to pose the most significant risk of Earth impact over the next 100 years.

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An asteroid about 25 feet (8 meters) across will safely pass Earth at about 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21 p.m. EST) today, March 6, approaching us six times closer than the moon.

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As happens about 20 times a year with current detection capabilities, a known asteroid will safely pass Earth Wednesday closer than the distance from Earth to the moon.

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Radar images of asteroid 2006 DP14 reveal it is a peanut-shaped space rock.

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As the next step in advancing NASA's asteroid initiative, the agency will host an Opportunities Forum March 26, 2014 at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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NASA is developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) -- a first-ever mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth's moon for future exploration by astronauts in the 2020s.

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NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft has spotted a never-before-seen asteroid -- its first such discovery since coming out of hibernation last year.

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Several sources confirm that the first discovered asteroid of 2014, designated 2014 AA, entered the Earth's atmosphere late January 1 EST over the mid-Atlantic Ocean.

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The first asteroid discovered in 2014 has entered Earth's atmosphere on January 2nd over the ocean off the coast of West Africa.

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Two surprisingly large Near-Earth Asteroids have been discovered in just the last week or so, as well as a third moderately large asteroid which surprisingly has also gone undetected until now, even though it can pass close enough to the Earth to be classified as "potentially hazardous".

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Link:

Near-Earth Object Program