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--- transportation:comets [2025/07/11 21:20] – [Defense] timb
+++ transportation:comets [2025/12/05 20:53] (current) – [Analysis] timb
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 https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/10/asteroid_2024_yr4_update/
+== An Asteroid Could Smash Into the Moon in 2032. Here’s Why We Should Destroy It ==
+Asteroid 2024 YR4 currently has a 4% chance of smashing into the Moon in about seven years. Astronomers are already working out ways to prevent a potential impact.
+Ellyn Lapointe - September 21, 2025
+Asteroid 2024 YR4 garnered global attention last year when astronomers estimated it could hit Earth in 2032. Though they have since ruled out that possibility, this large space rock still has a 4% chance of smashing into the Moon.
+Those are pretty slim odds, but on the off chance 2024 YR4 does end up on a collision course with the Moon, the scientific community needs to be prepared. Astronomers have found evidence to suggest that a lunar impact could eject an enormous amount of micrometeoroid debris into low-Earth orbit, potentially endangering spacecraft and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
+A new study by researchers from NASA and several other U.S. institutions lays out our options for avoiding this worst-case scenario. In the paper—submitted to the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences for peer review and made available on the preprint server arXiv—the authors assess multiple strategies for deflecting or destroying the asteroid before it can slam into the lunar surface. Their conclusion? It looks like blowing it up would be our best bet.
+https://gizmodo.com/an-asteroid-could-smash-into-the-moon-in-2032-heres-why-we-should-destroy-it-2000661550
@@ Line 561: / Line 577: @@
 https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/25/nasa_scout_asteroid_prediction/
+===== Chesapeake Bay (35M years ago) =====
+== Evidence of Ancient Asteroid Impact and Tsunami Found in North Carolina ==
+An asteroid that struck Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago left a long trail of destruction in its wake, new research suggests.
+Passant Rabie - September 13, 2025
+Around 35 million years ago, a small asteroid traveling at 40,000 miles per hour (64,373 kilometers per hour) struck Earth, crashing into the Atlantic Ocean near the modern-day town of Cape Charles, Virginia. The approximately 3-mile-wide (5-kilometer) object created a large impact crater that’s buried half a mile beneath Chesapeake Bay. Hundreds of miles south of the crater, scientists have found new evidence of the asteroid impact and the tsunami that followed the shattering event.
+Hidden beneath the waters of the Chesapeake, the impact crater in Virginia is among the largest and most preserved craters found on Earth. The Chesapeake Bay crater was first discovered in 1990, and scientists are still trying to piece together the trail of destruction left by the asteroid. A team of geologists investigating fossils in Moore County, North Carolina, uncovered layers of rock they determined were forged by the asteroid impact and the tsunami that followed.
+In a recently published study in Southeastern Geology, scientists document the far-reaching impact of the asteroid collision, detailing the discovery of a site found approximately 240 miles (386 km) away from the Virginia crater in the Sandhills of North Carolina.
+https://gizmodo.com/evidence-of-ancient-asteroid-impact-and-tsunami-found-in-north-carolina-2000657598
@@ Line 621: / Line 654: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/deflecting-a-killer-asteroid-is-more-complicated-than-nasa-thought-2000627783
+== Remember That Asteroid NASA Deflected in a Test of Saving Earth? We Have Bad News ==
+"Something unknown is at work here."
+Jul 11, 8:57 AM EDT - Victor Tangermann
+In late 2022, NASA celebrated its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) as a massive success, a proof of concept for saving humanity in case a similar space rock were to ever head straight for Earth.
+The small spacecraft smashed into asteroid Didymos' moonlet Dimorphos at a violent 14,000 mph, knocking it severely off course.
+But three years later, astronomers found that the collision had some unintended consequences. As detailed in a paper published last week in the Planetary Science Journal, a team led by the University of Maryland found that the DART spacecraft ejected a massive barrage of boulders, some of which carried more than three times the energy of the spacecraft itself.
+"We succeeded in deflecting an asteroid, moving it from its orbit," said lead author and UMD research scientist Tony Farnham in a statement about the research. "Our research shows that while the direct impact of the DART spacecraft caused this change, the boulders ejected gave an additional kick that was almost as big."
+The researchers warn that much like a game of pool, smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to save the Earth could set off a powerful sequence of events that needs to be taken into account.
+"That additional factor changes the physics we need to consider when planning these types of missions," Farnham added.
+https://futurism.com/asteroid-nasa-dart-unexpected
@@ Line 817: / Line 870: @@
+===== Venus =====
+== Undetected, Dangerous Asteroids Could Be Lurking in Venus’s Orbit ==
+A new study warns of an undiscovered population of asteroids that could strike Earth with little to no warning.
+Passant Rabie - September 26, 2025
+Space can be a dangerous place, with massive rocks hurling through the solar system at fast speeds, some of which may be headed in our direction. NASA and other agencies keep a close watch on the skies, on the lookout for potentially hazardous asteroids that threaten Earth. As it turns out, however, a unique group of potentially problematic asteroids may be hiding in plain sight.
+A group of researchers are warning of the potential threat of asteroids that share the orbit of Venus, circling the Sun at a close distance to Earth—but they’re practically invisible to our current observational tactics. In a recent study published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal, scientists reveal a population of potentially dangerous asteroids, which would appear in telescopic observations around two weeks before a potential impact on Earth.
+https://gizmodo.com/undetected-dangerous-asteroids-could-be-lurking-in-venuss-orbit-2000664077
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 https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-asteroid-bennu-sample-reveals-mix-of-lifes-ingredients/
+== Sugars, ‘Gum,’ Stardust Found in NASA’s Asteroid Bennu Samples ==
+Abby Tabor & Aaron L. Gronstal & Erin Morton & Rachel Barry - Dec 02, 2025
+The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists’ biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As part of the ongoing study of pristine samples delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, three new papers published Tuesday by the journals Nature Geosciences and Nature Astronomy present remarkable discoveries: sugars essential for biology, a gum-like substance not seen before in astromaterials, and an unexpectedly high abundance of dust produced by supernova explosions.
+Sugars essential to life
+Scientists led by Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan found sugars essential for biology on Earth in the Bennu samples, detailing their findings in the journal Nature Geoscience. The five-carbon sugar ribose and, for the first time in an extraterrestrial sample, six-carbon glucose were found. Although these sugars are not evidence of life, their detection, along with previous detections of amino acids, nucleobases, and carboxylic acids in Bennu samples, show building blocks of biological molecules were widespread throughout the solar system.
+For life on Earth, the sugars deoxyribose and ribose are key building blocks of DNA and RNA, respectively. DNA is the primary carrier of genetic information in cells. RNA performs numerous functions, and life as we know it could not exist without it. Ribose in RNA is used in the molecule’s sugar-phosphate “backbone” that connects a string of information-carrying nucleobases.
+https://www.nasa.gov/missions/osiris-rex/sugars-gum-stardust-found-in-nasas-asteroid-bennu-samples/
+== Sugars, 'Gum,' Stardust Found In NASA's Asteroid Bennu Samples ==
+Posted by BeauHD on Thursday December 04, 2025 11:07PM
+NASA's OSIRIS-REx samples from asteroid Bennu have revealed bio-essential sugars, a never-before-seen "space gum" polymer, and unusually high levels of supernova-origin dust. The findings bolster the RNA-world hypothesis, suggest complex organics formed early on Bennu's parent body, and show preserved presolar grains that escaped alteration for billions of years.
+"All five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA, along with phosphates, have already been found in the Bennu samples brought to Earth by OSIRIS-REx," said lead scientist Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University. "The new discovery of ribose means that all of the components to form the molecule RNA are present in Bennu."
+The findings have been published in three new papers by the journals Nature Geosciences and Nature Astronomy. NASA also published a video on YouTube detailing the discovery.
+https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/12/04/2237242/sugars-gum-stardust-found-in-nasas-asteroid-bennu-samples