Look at the asteroid with a 1-in-48 chance of hitting Earth | This Week In Space: Episode 148 - Clavius Base | Winter Triangle meets the 'Mars Triangle' in the night sky
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It might not look like much in this image, but this is the asteroid that has made a major news impact in 2025. That's because this space rock, designated asteroid 2024 YR4, has a 1-in-48 chance of impacting Earth in 2032. For obvious reasons, astronomers are desperate to learn as much as they can about 2024 YR4, estimated to be as large as 177 feet wide (54 meters wide). That's around as big as Cinderella's Castle in Walt Disney World.
On Episode 148 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik speak with Dr. Pascal Lee about why Clavius may be the ideal place to build our first lunar base. The very mention of Clavius, a vast lunar crater, brings to mind spectacular images from "2001: A Space Odyssey"- landing spacecraft, alien monoliths, and more. Notably, though, Clavius is not on NASA's dance card as a first-sitting consideration, but Lee thinks it should be, for many reasons, including interesting lunar geology, possible sites for permanent settlements -- including lava tubes, excellent prospects for transportation infrastructure, and much more.
We're now just past the midpoint of astronomical winter - that moment marking the midway point between December's winter solstice and March's vernal equinox. That moment took place at 4:11 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 3. And as darkness falls this week, we have what many refer to as the "Winter Triangle" dominating the southeast sky.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander has made it to the moon. The lander fired its engines for four minutes and 15 seconds on Thursday (Feb. 13), injecting itself into an elliptical lunar orbit ahead of a planned touchdown try a little over two weeks from now.
For a long time, scientists thought the Earth's inner core was a solid ball of metal, sort of like a planet within a planet that sits some 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers) below the surface. However, researchers from the University of Southern Carolina (USC) now say they discovered - almost by accident - that the Earth's inner core may be much more malleable.
SpaceX has broken its rocket-reuse record yet again. A Falcon 9 rocket launched 21 of the company's Starlink satellites to orbit over the weekend, marking the 26th liftoff for the rocket's first stage, breaking a reuse mark that SpaceX set just last month. Fifteen of those 26 missions have sent Starlink satellites skyward, according to a company mission description.
New research suggests a novel solution: a material called "hydrogel" - the same technology used for the 'grow monster' toys - could shield space travelers from harmful radiation.
On Feb. 18, 1930, the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto! Before he discovered Pluto, another astronomer named Percival Lowell had spent over a decade trying to find it. He had theorized that a ninth planet existed based on wobbles seen in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. But it wasn't until Tombaugh started using a new observation technique that Pluto was first spotted. The new technique involved something called a blink microscope, which Tombaugh used to compare photographic plates and look for signs of moving objects. In 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, though the debate on what defines a planet has continued in subsequent years.
