ESA - Planetary Defence - Archive

ESA title

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks

‘Mother of Dragons’ comet visible in the night sky

26/03/2024 173229 views 121 likes

Chelyabinsk asteroid trail

10 years preparing for 'Armageddon'

08/02/2024 4224 views 44 likes

Asteroid 2024 BX1 tracked prior to impact

Asteroid 2024 BX1 spotted three hours before impact

25/01/2024 6092 views 23 likes

Juventas studies asteroid's internal structure

Hera’s mini-radar will probe asteroid’s heart

10/08/2023 4128 views 65 likes

Hubble sees boulders escaping from asteroid Dimorphos

Science & Exploration

Hubble sees boulders escaping from asteroid Dimorphos

20/07/2023 10358 views 121 likes

Dimorphos asteroid seen by DART

Imagine walking on Hera’s asteroid

30/06/2023 4029 views 78 likes

Hera and its CubeSats at Didymos system

Precision deployer to put Hera’s CubeSats into asteroid orb…

29/06/2023 2536 views 40 likes

GRASS gravimeter on shaker

Instrument to measure asteroid gravity tested for space

22/05/2023 5273 views 65 likes

Hera, her CubeSats, and their rocky target destination

What colour is an asteroid? Hyperspectral imager to find out

24/04/2023 2635 views 44 likes

NEOMIR - in-orbit asteroid spotter

NEOMIR: finding risky asteroids outshone by Sun

17/02/2023 11471 views 116 likes

Science & Exploration

Webb detects extremely small main-belt asteroid

06/02/2023 11411 views 125 likes

Curious comet’s rare close approach

01/02/2023 34695 views 243 likes

Artist's impression of asteroid 21 Lutetia

Christmas challenge: find mystery asteroid

09/12/2022 10425 views 52 likes

Aten asteroids in orbit, with ESA's orbit visualisation tool

ESA asteroid toolkit: how to guide

09/12/2022 6361 views 18 likes

Time-lapse photograph of 2022 WJ1 taken by astronomer Robert Weryk in Ontario, Canada

The sixth asteroid impact we saw coming

24/11/2022 56416 views 139 likes

ESA's Optical Ground Station

Enabling & Support

ESA’s site for laser and quantum links marks 25 years

18/11/2022 2303 views 52 likes

Artist's impression of asteroid 21 Lutetia

30 000 near-Earth asteroids discovered and rising

12/10/2022 18242 views 65 likes

LICIACube image of asteroid ejecta

First kinetic impact test succeeds in shifting asteroid orb…

12/10/2022 5122 views 55 likes

Science & Exploration

Webb and Hubble capture detailed views of DART impact

29/09/2022 12506 views 114 likes

Plume ejects from Dimorphos as DART impacts

ESA to capture light from deflected asteroid’s new plume

26/09/2022 24498 views 79 likes

DART impacting asteroid

ESA deep space network tracks DART asteroid impact

20/09/2022 14432 views 104 likes

Madrid meteor's cometary origins unearthed

09/08/2022 6162 views 63 likes

A busy field of stars hide once-risky asteroid 2021 QM1

Impact in 2052 ruled out as ESA counts down to Asteroid Day

29/06/2022 43651 views 73 likes

Space Safety & Security at ESA

New home for Earth’s protectors

12/04/2022 9453 views 65 likes

Kleť Observatory sees asteroid 2022 EB5, 13 minutes before impact

Fifth asteroid ever discovered before impact

15/03/2022 19366 views 149 likes

Asteroid 2022 AE1 observed with the Calar Alto Schmidt telescope in Spain

The rise and fall of the riskiest asteroid in a decade

24/02/2022 75699 views 97 likes

Asteroid 2020 XL5 has been confirmed as the second known Earth Trojan asteroid

Newly discovered asteroid just second of its kind

01/02/2022 8301 views 111 likes

Real colour composite image of comet Leonard

Comet Leonard soon visible to naked eye?

08/12/2021 40611 views 151 likes

ESA's 4.5m tracking antenna, New Norcia, Western Australia

Enabling & Support

Catching asteroid deflection mission's first words

22/11/2021 12834 views 104 likes

NASA's DART impacting asteroid

Planetary defenders: after NASA’s DART comes ESA’s Hera

18/11/2021 7652 views 79 likes

Scaling up ESA’s asteroid facilities

11/10/2021 5529 views 60 likes

Milani scans Didymos

CubeSat will sift asteroid secrets from reflected sunshine

30/06/2021 5770 views 53 likes

Milani studies asteroid dust

CubeSat named for pioneer of European planetary defence

30/06/2021 2682 views 26 likes

Incoming asteroid

ESA joins Asteroid Day for rocky live broadcast

29/06/2021 3901 views 63 likes

Space Safety

Hang out with Europe’s top space experts

23/06/2021 8226 views 56 likes

Space Safety & Security at ESA

ESA’s digital celebration of space safety and Asteroid Day

14/06/2021 5463 views 46 likes

Hera in space

The Incredible Adventures of the Hera mission – Presenting …

01/06/2021 5481 views 74 likes

ESA Explores a fictional asteroid impact

28/04/2021 3079 views 56 likes

ESA's Test-Bed Telescope 2 at sunset at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile

New ESA telescope in South America to search for asteroids

27/04/2021 7746 views 74 likes

Asteroid passing Earth

ESA to live tweet asteroid impact exercise

26/04/2021 5213 views 65 likes

When the atmosphere isn't enough

19/04/2021 4645 views 64 likes

Apophis impact ruled out for the first time

26/03/2021 22159 views 104 likes

Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way

Gaia revolutionises asteroid tracking

01/07/2020 6298 views 88 likes

Space Safety

An Agency for asteroids

23/06/2020 4290 views 27 likes

Brian May, Astrophysicist and Rockstar

Queen’s Brian May works to probe origin of asteroids

02/06/2020 9968 views 64 likes

Opening ESA's Optical Ground Station

Enabling & Support

ESA’s Tenerife telescope resumes watching the sky

30/04/2020 3774 views 52 likes

Juventas radar CubeSat

Hera’s radar CubeSat will peer into asteroid’s heart

23/10/2019 2582 views 5 likes

NASA's DART impacting asteroid

Driving diamond into asteroid dust helps model planetary de…

19/09/2019 2556 views 13 likes

Artist impression of ‘Oumuamua

Interstellar 2.0

12/09/2019 21700 views 246 likes

Hera approaches the impact scene

A burst of asteroid activity in Europe

10/09/2019 12793 views 101 likes

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