Content tagged "asteroids".
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The asteroid Vesta is roughly 530 km across, yet it's a craggy, irregular lump. Saturn's moon Mimas, at just 394 km, is nearly a perfect sphere. The line between round and lumpy isn't just about size — it also depends on whether a body is made of rock or ice. Once a body gets heavy enough, its own gravity sands down every bump until it settles into a sphere.
In September 2022, NASA's DART probe slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos and shortened its orbit by 32 minutes. Now ESA's Hera is closing in on the same rock in November 2026 to check the results. SORABUMI explains why planetary defense needs a two-step approach.
Starting in 2026, Rubin Observatory photographs the entire southern sky every 3–4 days and fires off around 100,000 change alerts each night. For the first time, astronomers have a systematic record of everything that flickers, explodes, or moves when no one is watching. Here's what that means for astronomy.