After collapsing into pieces in December 2020, the mighty Arecibo Observatory has a final parting gift for humanity – and it's a doozy.
Fortunately, none of these newly described asteroids pose an immediate threat to Earth; according to NASA, our planet isHowever, scientists still pay close attention to near-Earth objects like these in case their trajectories happen to shift by some fluke of nature – say, a bump from anotherThe new report also flagged several asteroids deemed worthy of future study, including an oddball space object called 2017 YE5 – an ultra-rare"equal mass" binary asteroid, made of two nearly...
With this new"treasure trove" of data, scientists can better measure these asteroids' shapes, sizes, and spin periods, which are crucial metrics for assessing the potential risks that the asteroids may pose to our planet, lead study author