NASA's DART Mission Could Help Cancel an Asteroid Apocalypse

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November 18, 2021

Dear Reader, This week, we're focusing on high-impact science—literally. Our lead story is a deep dive into NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, slated to launch next week. DART is meant to slam into a moonlet orbiting a near-Earth asteroid in late 2022, as a way of better understanding how future deflections attempts for more dangerous space rocks could unfold. Elsewhere this week, we have stories about a new privately funded initiative to find habitable planets around Alpha Centauri, a risky Russian anti-satellite missile test, the Milky Way's coming collision with the Andromeda galaxy, and more.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Planetary Science NASA's DART Mission Could Help Cancel an Asteroid Apocalypse Our planet is vulnerable to thousands of "city-killer" space rocks. If—when—one is found on a collision course with Earth, will we be ready to deflect it? By Robin George Andrews

Astronomy Scientists Plan Private Mission to Hunt for Earths around Alpha Centauri A privately funded telescope called Toliman will seek habitable worlds in our nearest neighboring star system, potentially sparking a new wave of exoplanetary exploration By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Planetary Science Space Rocks Keep Hitting Jupiter: What's the Deal with That? The giant planet's hefty gravitational tug helps explain a spate of recent asteroid strikes By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

Space Exploration U.S. Officials Condemn Russian Anti-Satellite Test That Threatened Astronauts "The test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris," a State Department spokesperson said By Chelsea Gohd,SPACE.com

Cosmology Galaxy Collisions Preview Milky Way's Fate New revelations about how galaxies collide show what might happen when our galaxy meets Andromeda By Aaron S. Evans,Lee Armus

Planetary Science Ancient Martian 'Lake' May Have Just Been Ephemeral Puddles One study suggests the Curiosity rover's landing site is not as it seems By Lee Billings

Engineering Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2021 Innovations to help tackle societal challenges—especially climate change

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 325, Issue 6

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Alpha Centauri is just a sitting duck for this particular technique. It's almost like the universe put it there for this particular mission." Peter Tuthill, an astronomer at the University of Sydney and lead of the planet-hunting Toliman telescope

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Is It a Planet? Astronomers Spy Promising Potential World around Alpha Centauri The candidate could be a "warm Neptune" or a mirage. Either way, it signals the dawn of a revolution in astronomy By Lee Billings | February 2021

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