This site provides information related to the recently discovered asteroid 1997XF11 and how close it will come to Earth in 30 years. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics provides a hyperlinked press release about 1997XF11, discovered by Professor James Scotti of the University of Arizona. The first estimates were as close as 30,000 miles. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space...

Asteroids have been of continued interest and research among scientists and the general public. This issue's Topic in Depth explores some of the Internet's offerings on the subject. From Spaceflight Now, the first site (1) is an April 7, 2002 article that describes new research, showing that "there are between 1.1 million and 1.9 million 'space rocks' larger than 1 kilometre in diameter in the...

What would happen if a large meteorite or other object hit the Earth? It's something that has engaged the minds and talents of astrophysicists (and students of all ages) for decades. Now the generally curious can create their own simulated impact with Purdue University's "Impact Earth" website. Visitors can browse the Famous Craters area to get started. This part includes some "classics," such as...

NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) offers this Webpage (for another similar page from JPL, see the March 13, 1998 Scout Report for Science & Engineering) containing relevant information on Near Earth Objects (NEO). The site includes current tables with tracking data for potentially hazardous asteroids and their approaches towards earth, detailed...

Ancient asteroids kept on coming http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-asteroids-kept-on-coming-1.10504 Dinosaurs were declining before asteroid struck, say scientists http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0501/Dinosaurs-were-declining-before-asteroid-struck-say-scientists-video Triceratops was already on road to extinction before asteroid wiped out...

250 Million years ago, about 90 percent of ocean life and 70 percent of land species were wiped out in a relatively short geologic time span. A new study appearing today in Science magazine suggests that this die-off was triggered by a comet or asteroid collision similar to the one that many believed later killed off the dinosaurs. The lead author of the study, Luann Becker of the University of...

This site provides information related to the recently discovered asteroid 1997XF11 and how close it will come to Earth in 30 years. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics provides a hyperlinked press release about 1997XF11, discovered by Professor James Scotti of the University of Arizona. The first estimates were as close as 30,000 miles. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space...