Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Near-Earth object
Near-Earth objects (NEO) are asteroids, comets and large meteoroids whose orbit intersects Earth's orbit and which may therefore pose a collision danger. Due to their size and proximity, NEOs are also more easily accessible for spacecraft from Earth and are important for future scientific investigation and commercial development. In fact, some near-Earth asteroids can be reached with a much smaller change in velocity than the Moon.
In the United States, NASA has a congressional mandate to catalogue all NEOs that are at least 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) wide. At this size and larger, an impacting NEO would cause catastrophic local damage and significant to severe global consequences. Approximately 800 of these NEOs have been detected. According to the most widely accepted estimates, there are still 200 more that have not been found yet. The United States, European Union and other nations are currently scanning for NEOs in an effort called Spaceguard. Currently efforts are under way to use an existing telescope in Australia to cover the approximately 30 percent of the sky that is not currently surveyed.
Related Stories
1
2
Space & Time News
November 15, 2025
Nov. 13, 2025 Researchers engineered “gyromorphs,” a new type of metamaterial that combines liquid-like randomness with large-scale structural patterns to block light from every direction. This innovation solves longstanding limitations in quasicrystal-based ...
Nov. 13, 2025 Arctic sea ice is disappearing fast, and scientists have turned to an unexpected cosmic clue—space dust—to uncover how ice has changed over tens of thousands of years. By tracking helium-3–bearing dust trapped (or blocked) by ancient ice, ...
Nov. 10, 2025 New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can ...
Nov. 2, 2025 A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...
Oct. 30, 2025 Scientists have developed a groundbreaking tool called Effort.jl that lets them simulate the structure of the universe using just a laptop. The team created a system that dramatically speeds up how researchers study cosmic data, turning what once ...
Oct. 29, 2025 Tohoku University researchers have found a way to make quantum sensors more sensitive by connecting superconducting qubits in optimized network patterns. These networks amplify faint signals possibly left by dark matter. The approach outperformed ...
Oct. 27, 2025 Two Sydney PhD students have pulled off a remarkable space science feat from Earth—using AI-driven software to correct image blurring in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their innovation, called AMIGO, fixed distortions in the telescope’s ...
Oct. 25, 2025 A UCLA-led team has achieved the sharpest-ever view of a distant star’s disk using a groundbreaking photonic lantern device on a single telescope—no multi-telescope array required. This technology splits incoming starlight into multiple ...
Oct. 25, 2025 Researchers propose that hydrogen gas from the early Universe emitted detectable radio waves influenced by dark matter. Studying these signals, especially from the Moon’s radio-quiet environment, could reveal how dark matter clumped together ...
Oct. 15, 2025 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...
Oct. 14, 2025 High above the Sun’s blazing equator lie its mysterious poles, the birthplace of fast solar winds and the heart of its magnetic heartbeat. For decades, scientists have struggled to see these regions, hidden from Earth’s orbit. With the upcoming ...
Oct. 12, 2025 A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing deep ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
Nov. 14, 2025 A massive, well-preserved impact crater has been uncovered in Guangdong, revealing the signature of a powerful meteorite strike during the Holocene. ...
Nov. 14, 2025 Scientists have finally confirmed a powerful coronal mass ejection from another star, using LOFAR radio data paired with XMM-Newton’s X-ray insights. The eruption blasted into space at ...
Nov. 13, 2025 A newly detected super-Earth just 20 light-years away is giving scientists one of the most promising chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. The discovery of the exoplanet orbiting in ...
Nov. 13, 2025 Simulations reveal that Jupiter’s rapid growth disrupted the early solar system, creating rings where new planetesimals formed much later than expected. These late-forming bodies match the ages and ...
Nov. 12, 2025 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a trove of complex organic molecules frozen in ice around a young star in a neighboring galaxy — including the first-ever detection ...
Nov. 12, 2025 Scientists have identified three Earth-sized planets orbiting two stars in the TOI-2267 system. Remarkably, planets transit around both stars — a first in astronomy. The system’s compact, cold ...
Nov. 11, 2025 New simulations suggest magnetic fields hold the key to forming black holes that defy known mass limits. When powerful magnetic forces act on a collapsing, spinning star, they eject vast amounts of ...
Nov. 10, 2025 XRISM’s observations of GX13+1 revealed a slow, fog-like wind instead of the expected high-speed blast, challenging existing models of radiation-driven outflows. The discovery hints that ...
Nov. 10, 2025 From Cassini’s awe-inspiring flybys to cutting-edge simulations, scientists are decoding the secrets of Enceladus’s geysers. Supercomputer models show the icy moon’s plumes lose less mass than ...
Nov. 9, 2025 Astronomers have discovered phosphine gas in the atmosphere of an ancient brown dwarf, Wolf 1130C, using the James Webb Space Telescope. The finding is puzzling because phosphine, a potential ...