https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

On October 20, after a careful approach to the boulder-strewn surface, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's arm reached out and touched asteroid Bennu.

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OSIRIS Rex managed to collect several hundred grams of materials from the surface of the asteroid Bennu.
The only problem at the moment is a sort of embarrassment of riches.

They collected such a large sample, that one of the larger rocks has jammed the lid of the collector bin slightly ajar. This caused a little of the finer-grained material to leak out.

Now they are minimizing the movement of the probe, so as not to jar lose any more of the sample. Once the sample bin is secured within OSIRIS REx , they can spin up the probe, to determine the actual mass of the sample.

The plan to spin up the OSIRIS Rex probe, after the sample has been secured, in order to determine the mass of the material in the collection bin, has apparently been scrubbed. There seems to be a concern that the material might scatter further, if this is done.

So, we'll have to wait until after the probe returns to Earth in Sept., 2023 to get the exact weight. The only definite figure that has been mentioned, and that merely an estimate, is ~ 400 grams. The minimum desired was just under 60 grams.

The Hubble space telescope has discovered a comet in a group of asteroids called Trojans preceding and another following Jupiter on its orbit. The astronomers who found them gave them the names of Trojan heroes to one group and Greek heroes to the other, but they made some mistakes and put the Greek hero Patroclus in the Trojan group.
Tullio

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2nd 'Trojan Asteroid' confirmed orbiting with Earth.

A rocky body spotted orbiting in Earth's path is a "Trojan asteroid" that escorts our planet around the sun, astronomers have confirmed.

Asteroid 2020 XL5 is the second Trojan asteroid ever discovered. It's three times larger than the only other known Earth Trojan, called Asteroid 2010 TK7, which was confirmed in 2011. These small space rocks orbit along with Earth, but they are hard to spot from our planet — Asteroid 2010 TK7 is sometimes on the other side of the sun from us. They sit in gravitational sweet spots known as Lagrangian points. If Earth and the sun make up two points of an equilateral triangle, the Lagrangian point would be that triangle's third point. Earth and the sun have five of these points.

The newfound Trojan is at a Lagrangian point that has it orbiting ahead of Earth in the two bodies' shared path and the asteroid will stay there for 4,000 more years, researchers reported Tuesday (Feb. 1) in the journal Nature Communications. The asteroid is probably about 0.7 miles (1.18 kilometers) in diameter, though that estimate may be off if the surface of the asteroid is more or less reflective than astronomers assume.

Trojans exist in other planetary orbits as well. They've been spotted around Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, study leader Tony Santana-Ros, a planetary scientist at the University of Alicante in Spain, and colleagues wrote in the new paper. It's harder to see Earth's own Trojans, though, because they often sit in Earth's shadow or orbit at an odd angle from the planet, making them dim and hard to catch. Asteroid 2020 XL5 was first seen in the Pan-STARRS1 survey, which uses a 1.8-meter telescope in Hawaii to take wide-field images of the sky. Follow-up data was gathered from telescopes in Arizona, Chile and the Canary Islands.....

Cheers.

In a little bit of news on this front.

Scientist Spots First Known Quadruple Asteroid System.

Scientists spot 10,000th medium near-Earth asteroid in planetary defense milestone.

Psyche asteroid 'worth $10,000 QUADRILLION' may be less heavy metal.

Cheers.

A fireball that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 was actually a fast-moving object from another star system, according to a recent memo (opens in new tab) released by the U.S. Space Command (USSC).
https://www.livescience.com/first-interstellar-object-detected

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal

Thanks Wiggo.

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A large tourist is due to pay our solar system a visit in 2031.

Turns Out the Megacomet Is More Than 80 Miles Wide—and It's Headed Our Way.

Last year, the monstrous Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (also known as C/2014 UN271) was discovered by the eponymous University of Pennsylvania astronomers Gary Bernstein and Pedro Bernardinelli. The pair called it the “nearly spherical cow of comets” in their paper about the discovery, but it wasn’t long until the world dubbed it the “megacomet” for being an absolute unit of a space object.

While the megacomet fell out of the main space news spotlight, NASA astronomers set the the Hubble Space Telescope’s sights on the object in the months since—and discovered how truly immense it is. A new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday confirmed that Bernardinelli-Bernstein had a nucleus—the icy core at the center of all comets—that’s more than 80 miles wide. That’s roughly 50 times larger than other comets and the largest ever observed.

“This comet is literally the tip of the iceberg for many thousands of comets that are too faint to see in the more distant parts of the solar system,” David Jewitt, a professor of planetary science and astronomy at the UCLA and co-author of the study, said in a NASA press release. “We've always suspected this comet had to be big because it is so bright at such a large distance. Now we confirm it is.”

Even with the imagery provided by the Hubble, scientists still had their work cut out for them in sussing out its precise size. After all, the megacomet is still incredibly far away. So the team had to process images taken of the comet by the Hubble in a computer model, which gave them an approximate estimation of its mass. Now astronomers can confirm that the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet is much larger than any other comet ever discovered. The previous record was held by C/2002 VQ94, which had a nucleus that’s a mere 60 miles across.....

You're welcome Lynn.

Cheers.

I watched an interview on YouTube with an astronomer who claims there is virtually nothing we can do (with current technology) to deflect or destroy any incoming asteroid or comet. Even with months of warning and possible knowledge of where it will strike it is doubtful that many lives can be saved.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

The European Space Agency needs your eyes.

Europe’s Space Agency Needs You to Find the Differences Between These Pictures.

Between 2014 and 2016, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft orbited and studied a comet hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, collecting data on the space rock’s structure and geology. Now, the ESA is asking the public to study images of the comet and to report differences in its surface features over time.

The object is Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and was first observed in 1969. The comet has an elliptical, 6.5-year orbit. When Rosetta arrived at the object in 2014, it became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet.

As Comet 67P (as it’s known for short) moved through its orbit, the Sun shone on its different sides. That gave Rosetta a hugely illuminating look at the icy rock, views that were captured in numerous images by the onboard OSIRIS camera.

“Given the complexity of the imagery, the human eye is much better at detecting small changes between images than automated algorithms are,” said Sandor Kruk, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics near Munich, Germany, who dreamt up and began the citizen science project...

Cheers.

Another is on it's way.

Huge asteroid three times size of blue whale to ‘skim past’ Earth within days.

NASA is staying tuned for a huge space rock that‘s three times the size of a blue whale and it’s about to skim past Earth.

Asteroid 2021 GT2 is passing close enough to make it on NASA‘s Earth Close Approaches tables,The Sun reports.

The space agency estimates that the asteroid is between 36 and 82 metres wide.

In comparison, the average blue whale is around 21 metres long.

An asteroid of this size would cause some serious damage if it hit Earth.

Although NASA flagged the space rock as a close approach, Asteroid 2021 GT2 is set to pass the Earth at a safe 3.5 million km threshold.

If an asteroid comes within 7.4 million km of Earth and is over a certain size, it’s considered “potentially hazardous” by cautious space agencies.

Asteroid 2021 GT2 fits this NASA guideline.

The huge asteroid is expected to fly past on June 6....

Cheers.

It's also our Queen's Birthday public holiday here Sten. ;-)

Cheers.

Get ready for a once in a great many lifetimes experience.

Bright green comet a rare 'messenger from the outer reaches of our solar system,' astronomers say.
Cheers.

I knew that there had to be a reason for this heavily overcast sky here this morning.

Asteroid the size of delivery truck to come 'extraordinarily close' to Earth.

The 2023 ‘green comet’ is now visible from Earth for the first time in 50,000 years.

Cheers.

Something to look forward to.

Bright new comet discovered zooming toward the sun could outshine the stars next year.

A newly discovered comet may appear as bright as a star in the night sky by fall 2024.

The comet, known as C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), was first noted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope project in South Africa on Feb. 22, according to the Minor Planet Center. Astronomers at the Purple Mountain Observatory in China also discovered the comet independently on Jan. 9, so both observatories are cited in the comet's full name. Skywatchers around the world have since observed it in new and old images, with the earliest detection found in images taken by a wide-field camera on a telescope at Palomar Observatory in California on Dec. 12, 2022.

Currently, C/2023 A3 is between Saturn and Jupiter, according to EarthSky. It's traveling at a zippy 180,610 mph (290,664 km/h) and is likely to make its closest approach to Earth on Oct. 13, 2024.

Astronomers estimate that the comet orbits the sun only once every 80,660 years. This trip around, the comet will make its closest approach to the sun — known as perihelion — on Sept. 28, 2024, according to EarthSky.

All of this depends, of course, on the comet staying in one piece. Comets are loosely bound balls of ice, rock and dust, and they often break up when they approach the sun and start to heat up....

Cheers.

NASA discovers new asteroid that could potentially hit Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046.

A new asteroid named 2023 DW has been discovered by scientists — and there’s a slim chance it might ruin everyone’s Valentine’s Day plans.

The asteroid has been added to the European Space Agency‘s Risk List, meaning it poses a risk of impacting Earth,

Currently, it ranks as the No. 1 asteroid on the list due to its potential risk of hitting our planet.

However, there is no immediate threat of catastrophic damage as it has a Torino Scale ranking of 1, meaning it poses “no unusual level of danger”.

Scientists estimate that the asteroid has a 50-metre diameter, but there is still uncertainty about its size.

The chance of a collision with Earth is extremely unlikely. The asteroid has a 1 in 607 chance of impacting our planet, and the earliest it could potentially hit is February 14, 2046.

NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office has been tracking the asteroid, offering updates on the giant projectile as they come....

A probe is on its way to checkout what is thought to be the core remnants of an ancient protoplanet.

NASA launches spacecraft to explore metal-rich asteroid Psyche.

NASA has launched a spacecraft from Florida on its way to Psyche, the largest of the several metal-rich asteroids known in our solar system and a body thought to be the remnant core of an ancient protoplanet.

The Psyche probe, folded inside the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on a planned journey 3.5 billion kilometres through space.

The spacecraft, roughly the size of a small van, is due to reach the asteroid in August 2029.

The launch, which happened just after midnight AEDT, marks the latest in a series of recent NASA missions seeking clues about the formation of our planet about 4.5 billion years ago by sending robotic spacecraft to explore asteroids — primordial relics from the dawn of the solar system.

This asteroid measures roughly 279km across at its widest point and resides on the outer fringes of the main asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

Psyche's mission control team plans to spend the next three to four months conducting checks of the spacecraft's systems before sending it on its journey into deep space, propelled by solar-electric ion thrusters being used for the first time on an interplanetary mission.

After reaching the asteroid, the spacecraft would then orbit it for 26 months, scanning Psyche with instruments built to measure its gravity, magnetic proprieties and composition......

Cheers.