NASA Selects Two Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

Recent News

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  December 29, 2016

  NASA's NEOWISE Mission Spies One Comet, Maybe Two

  NASA's NEOWISE mission has recently discovered some celestial objects traveling through our neighborhood, including one on the blurry line between asteroid and comet.

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  December 15, 2016

  Where is the Ice on Ceres? New NASA Dawn Findings

  At first glance, Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, may not look icy.

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  November 18, 2016

  New Ceres Views as Dawn Moves Higher

  Newly released images of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft showcase the dwarf planet's diversity and wonder.

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Next Five Close Approaches

Average distance between Earth and the moon is about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers).

The Asteroid Watch Widget tracks asteroids and comets that will make relatively close approaches to Earth. The Widget displays the date of closest approach, approximate object diameter, relative size and distance from Earth for each encounter. The object's name is displayed by hovering over its encounter date. Clicking on the encounter date will display a Web page with details about that object.

The Widget displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon); an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object.