New research indicates that Plutoβs largest moon, Charon, may continue to lose rotational energy despite the pairβs long-standing tidal lock, offering scientists a rare glimpse into the hidden interiors of distant icy worlds.
The post Plutoβs Moon Charon May Still Be Slowing Its Spin, Study Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Nearly 400 days and a billion kilometers after leaving Earth, Chinaβs Tianwen-2 spacecraft has arrived at its target: the near-Earth asteroid 469219 KamoΚ»oalewa, also known as 2016 HO3. And the missionβs first photo of the rock has already had scientific impact, reopening an ongoing investigation over whether KamoΚ»oalewa began as a chunk of the Moon.Continue reading "Tianwen-2 arrives at target asteroid KamoΚ»oalewa"
The post Tianwen-2 arrives at target asteroid KamoΚ»oalewa appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.
Towering glaciers flow down the Himalayas' northern slopes like icy giants cascading onto China's Tibetan Plateau.
Back in May, from aboard the International Space Station 259 miles (417 kilometers) above Earth, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir peered out the station's windows with her camera and captured a breathtaking sight.
In that fleeting moment from space, she captured the northern slopes of the Himalaya mountains stretching into China. And atop the mountains, slow-moving rivers of glacial ice carve their way downhill.
This view shows the enormity of this mountain range, which separates Nepal from China's Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayas have the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, with over 110 mountain peaks surpassing 24,000 feet (7,300 meters) of elevation above sea level. Ranging across five countries (Nepal, India, China, Bhutan and Pakistan) the mountain range is about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) wide.
With the range being so incredibly expansive, this view from space offers a unique vantage point from which we can see a large swath of the mountains in motion. Even in a helicopter, you would get a fairly localized view of individual mountains in the Himalayas. This view provides a striking scene that you cannot see from the surface of our planet.
This view is also a reminder of how important space is in our evolving understanding of climate change. As our planet continues to change and sea levels rise with warming temperatures, we can see glacial movement from space. This is an important resource to researchers fighting to better understand climate change so we can better fight it. With access to information about glaciers and how they melt, move and flow across the world, we can be better prepared to protect our planet and its inhabitants.
NASA's Curiosity rover has spotted a strange honeycomb texture on the surface of Mars. But what is it?
Almost 14 years since landing on the Red Planet, Curiosity is still hard at work exploring. And in new observations, Curiosity has revealed an image that is certainly ... peculiar.
Curiosity went to get a closer look at an area first observed from Mars orbit, and found what appears to be a honeycomb structure in on the planet's surface. Polygonal shapes, nearly identical to one another, make up a pattern almost like a Martian wallpaper or carpet.
But what is it? Why does it look like that? What is a honeycomb doing on Mars?
This is one of many mysteries we have yet to solve on Mars. While the team saw this area first from orbit around the planet, when the rover arrived and saw this structure they were surprised, they shared in a blog post.
In addition to the honeycomb texture, the area was littered with dark rocks and strewn around. But even these pebbles lack explanation. Did they "float" down from higher rock levels, did they launch out of Gale crater during some ancient collision or could they possibly even be meteorites from outside of Mars that ended up strewn across the surface? Researchers think any one of these explanations could be possible.
Previous, similar dark stones have been found on Mars with minerals like nickel that are common in meteorites and uncommon in Mars rocks. But are these similar? Perhaps part of a similar collision event? We don't yet know.
As researchers find new mysteries on Mars, they also continue to find new ways to investigate the unknown. With further study, they will explore both these strange honeycombs and the dark rocks scattered amongst them.
Landing spacecraft on the moon could contaminate ancient clues about how life may have originated on Earth, a new study finds.
As NASA continues on with its plan of sending astronauts back to the moon with the Artemis program, researchers are exploring what possible unintended consequences may arise from humans visiting the lunar surface. For instance, Artemis IV will land astronauts near the moon's south pole and the agency has future plans for building a longer-term moon base on the lunar surface, which would require many more trips. And indeed, a new study has found the exhaust from spacecraft involved with these landings could expel enough methane to contaminate the moon's surface β possibly destroying molecules that could help to explain how life may have originated on Earth.
"We are trying to protect science and our investment in space," senior study author Silvio Sinibaldi, the planetary protection officer at the European Space Agency, said in a statement. "Our activity can actually hinder scientific exploration."
While experts have had concerns for some time about how rocket launches on Earth pollute our planet and atmosphere, scientists have only really considered this issue with our own planet. This is especially because we haven't been to the moon's surface in over 50 years; concerns of accidental effects of a lunar landing simply haven't been top-of-mind. That's what makes this new study so important. It points to a potential issue that could mean that future moon landings might actually be detrimental to science.
So why do we think the signs of life could be hiding on the moon? It's actually hiding in ice. Dark craters near the moon's poles, which exist in perpetual shadow, hold ancient ice. This ice is thought to contain material from asteroids and comets that smashed into the moon billions of years ago. Trapped in lunar ice to this day, these bits of ancient collisions could include what the researchers describe as "prebiotic organic molecules," or molecules that could have preceded life on Earth.
It's thought that these molecules from asteroid and comet visitors could have sparked life on Earth, and by studying those possibly trapped on the moon, researchers could be looking at the molecules that ended up combining and creating life as we know it.
The molecular history of life on Earth is pretty much nonexistent on our own planet, as it was largely destroyed by the billions of years of changes we've experienced. But the moon has remained mostly unchanged, so these wells of ice are a uniquely-preserved sampling of pre-life molecules.
"We know we have organic molecules in the solar system β in asteroids, for example," Sinibaldi said. "But how they came to perform specific functions like they do in biological matter is a gap we need to fill."
This ice exists in a somewhat fragile ecosystem, so left alone in darkness, this ice isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But with Artemis, NASA is planning on sending crewed landers to the moon's south pole. That might pose a problem. With computer models in this new study, researchers have shown that the methane exhaust from these landers could very quickly and permanently contaminate this ancient ice, destroying the molecular evidence sealed within.
In those computer models, the researchers simulated how methane, the main organic component expelled by planned lunar landers, would spread across the moon's surface after a landing at the south pole. While the simulations included the effects of solar wind and radiation, the moon's lack of an atmosphere caused the methane to spread incredibly quickly, reaching the moon's north pole in under two lunar days.
Within one lunar week (which is roughly seven months on Earth), over half the methane was trapped at the moon's cold polar areas, with a whopping 42% of the substance trapped at the south pole compared to 12% at the north pole. This methane could collect in the same cold pockets where ice and ancient molecules have been collected for billions of years, possibly contaminating this finite, scientific evidence.
"Their trajectories are basically ballistic," lead author Francisca Paiva, a physicist at Instituto Superior TΓ©cnico in Portugal, said in the statement. "They just hop around from one point to another."
In better news, there may be a way to circumvent some of this methane disturbance. For instance, the study suggests it's possible that by choosing colder landing sites, scientists can avoid having the methane travel as quickly or as far. Additional simulations are needed to better understand how exhaust compounds travel on the moon, however, as well as the risks that this poses for scientific investigations and if there are other materials lunar trips will involve that could contaminate the environment. Above all, the new study's team emphasizes that as we push toward future lunar exploration, it is key to balance our dreams of settling the moon with preserving its priceless history.
"We have laws regulating contamination of Earth environments like Antarctica and national parks," Paiva said. "I think the moon is an environment as valuable as those."
This work was described in a study published last year in the journal the American Geophysical Union.
Chinaβs Tianwen 2 mission returns its close view of Earth's tiny "quasi-moon" KamoΚ»oalewa.
The post Tianwen 2 Arrives at Quasi-Moon KamoΚ»oalewa, Returns Images appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
We might be living through a comet shower created by a star that millions of years ago jostled the Oort Cloud surrounding the solar system.
The post Did a Passing Star Shower Us with Comets? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
When you think of an asteroid impact, youβre probably imagining something like the cataclysmic event that nearly wiped out the dinosaurs. In an astonishingly rare event, a rock the size of the island of Manhattan could come hurtling from deep space towards Earth and destroy the world.
On the contrary, asteroids are generally leftover debris from the primordial solar system that didnβt become part of a larger body, like a planet or moon, and theyβre not particularly rare. Scientists estimate that there are about 1 billion asteroids and comets classified as near-Earth objects, or NEOs. NEOs are generally much smaller than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. They range from weakly held-together piles of rubble 200 meters (700 feet) across, to the minuscule 2024 BX1, approximately 44 centimeters (17 inches) across.Β
For several decades, astronomical surveys of the sky have looked for these asteroids. NASAβs Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) Fireball and Bolide Database has records of over 1,000 incidents of objects colliding with our planet since the mid-1990s. Among these is a set of 11 objects that scientists detected before they hit Earth, known as imminent impactors. Finding imminent impactors allows scientists unique opportunities to study the smallest building blocks of the solar system, enabling them to learn more about asteroid composition, structure, and history.
A team of scientists recently conducted a study on how the newly built Vera Rubin Observatory could detect more imminent impactors before they strike Earth. They examined the CNEOS Fireball and Bolide Database impact records spanning February 1, 1994, to January 1, 2026, for records of the asteroidsβ coordinates, velocities, and the energy they released at the time of collision.Β
They found that 343 NEOs met this criterion, including 5 known imminent impactors. Using these recorded data, they reconstructed the objectsβ pre-impact characteristics. The team predicted the asteroidsβ orbital paths from the recorded coordinates and velocity. Assuming the objects were spherical, they estimated the size from velocity and impact energy. From this information about the asteroidsβ state before impact, the team could then simulate whether the Rubin Observatory would have detected them.Β
When small asteroids hit Earth, they mostly burn up in the atmosphere, producing a bright flash that is relatively easy to spot compared to when they are in space. The Rubin Observatory can see objects up to 10 billion times dimmer than the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius. To predict if the Rubin Observatory can detect dim NEOs, the team used the solar system simulator SORCHA. SORCHA takes an observatoryβs specifications and the physical properties of the NEOs and uses these to determine whether the observatory could detect them. It also estimates the measured sizes and speeds of the NEOs, and predicts when the observatory would have seen them.Β
At the Rubin Observatory, an imminent impactor is considered discovered if itβs observed at least 3 separate times over 15 days before hitting Earth. So this team applied this same criterion to their simulation. They found that of their 343 impactors, SORCHA estimated that the Rubin Observatory would have discovered 14 of them before impact.Β
They also found that SORCHA predicted 4 additional impactors that could have been observed at least once, potentially allowing scientists to search other telescope data for evidence of their existence in pre-collision images. Based on these results, the team estimated that the Rubin Observatory could find 4% of all objects longer than 1 meter (3 feet) before they hit Earth. This percentage of discovery translates to 1 to 2 imminent impactors detected every year, at least double their current discovery rate.
The ability to more consistently find imminent impactors would allow researchers to study the smallest pieces of the solar system in detail and to draw general conclusions about the properties of objects that could potentially collide with Earth. This would also allow scientists to more accurately calculate the orbits of imminent impactors, determine where more meteorites land to recover them, and keep tabs on the extremely rare but more hazardous large impactors for planetary defense initiatives. So, humanity can learn more about the ancient solar system, and hopefully avoid going the way of the dinosaurs while doing so!
The post How many asteroids can we detect before they hit Earth? appeared first on Sciworthy.
Japanβs Hayabusa 2 mission has revealed another "snowman" asteroid β a pair of asteroids attached with a narrow neck. The contact binary could help shed light on planet formation.
The post Hayabusa 2 Completes Flyby Past Asteroid Torifune appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is finding clues that are leading scientists closer to understanding the origins of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.
Comet 3I/ATLAS captured the world's attention when it was discovered nearly a year ago on July 1, 2025. The comet was first spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), and is only the third interstellar object every discovered.
The comet swooped through our solar system, passing by Earth at a far (and safe) distance on its tour of our cosmic neighborhood. It is on a long trajectory that will take it out of our solar system, never to return.
In observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists were able to look in the direction the comet as it began moving away from the sun in December of last year. While in close proximity to our star, the sun's heat warmed the comet, making it extra bright and easy to observe.
With this view, astronomers were able to calculate some of the ratios of the chemicals present in the comet. This further highlighted that the object is from out of our solar system, as they found ratios of carbon and heavy hydrogen not found in comets in our solar system.
Researchers described their results in a new paper published June 22 in the journal Nature.
Being only the third interstellar object ever found, people were excited about 3I/ATLAS. They were so excited, in fact, that conspiracies about the object sprouted up quickly. Due to it being from outside of our solar system, some claimed that the comet could be some sort of alien spaceship, similar to the initial suspicions about the interstellar object 'Oumuamua found years earlier.
But with new information coming in from space telescopes, and astronomers eager to understand this object better, these clues are leading us closer and closer to the true origins of this strange comet.
Astronomers have found that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains an unusually large amount of methanol. Every interstellar object that passes through our solar system offers a rare chance to sample material forged around another star. Now, new observations of comet 3I/ATLAS using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed a chemical surprise: the comet is [...]The discovery of all five nucleobases on Ryugu strengthens the idea that lifeβs molecular ingredients formed in space before reaching Earth. A new study reports that samples from the asteroid Ryugu contain all five fundamental nucleobases, the molecular βlettersβ of life. Tiny asteroid grains can preserve chemical clues about the ingredients that may have helped [...]Exploding stars have left their radioactive mark on our planet. Now scientists have found more evidence of a particularly violent event in Earthβs more ancient past.
The post Exploding Stars Sprinkled Ancient Earth With Radioactive Iron and Plutonium appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Webb found the same unexplained infrared fingerprint on two frozen worlds.The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical fingerprint unlike anything in our Solar System, and it may have formed 10 to 12 billion years ago, before our Sun even existed, according to two papers published in the journal Nature.
The post Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Formed Up To 12 Billion Years Ago, New Observations Suggest appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
The main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, a heavily cratered fragment born from a catastrophic breakup 155 million years ago, appears to wobble through space while preserving clues to the migration of water-rich worlds in the early Solar System, according to a new analysis of images and data from NASAβs Lucy spacecraft.
The post Asteroid Donaldjohanson is Wobbly, Peanut-Shaped Object with Watery Past, Scientists Say appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
The most recent interstellar visitor was crisscrossing our galaxy for some 10 to 12 billion years before it came near the Sun.
The post Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Has Cold, Ancient Origins appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
GOLDEN, Colorado β The moon is in need of good and accurate artists!
As NASA's Artemis program hits its stride, and in a few years "reboots" our moon with a human presence, there's an urgent need to guard against artistic misrepresentations of the lunar landscape, experts say.
We've all seen those alluring lunar renderings of vehicles and astronauts bounding about while setting up equipment and putting in place a moon base.
"We are telling the public the moon is easy β it is not!"
That's the matter-of-fact warning from Daniel Britt, the Pegasus Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences in the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida. He's also the director of the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science.
Britt spoke about and showcased artists' misconceptions during a "reality versus depictions of the lunar surface" talk here at a Space Resources Roundtable, held from June 2 to June 5 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines.
"I wish I could say that engineers and managers know better, but they don't. We are training a generation of engineers to not worry about terrain. If the artists are getting it wrong, it is our fault. Let's stop fooling ourselves," Britt said.
Well versed in what the lunar surface truly offers, Britt scolded a number of arty accounts of lunar territory promulgated by both NASA and commercial space ventures. He spotlighted what's wrong with those pictures β for starters, small craters and ever-present lunar dust, along with dirty astronauts, dirty equipment and dirty habitats.
A flat, dustless moon is not the one we are sending Artemis astronauts to, said Britt. Crews will experience coarse terrain, pervasive dust, and a surface unlike anything here on Earth. These are the facts of life on the moon, he said.
The Apollo moon-landing missions learned this first hand. But those astronauts explored equatorial areas. The Artemis program is targeting the lunar south polar region, which will be tough to deal with thanks to the low angle of the sun.
"When you look into the sun, it will be blasting into your face. But at least you'll see the shadow of that crater you are about to trip into," said Britt. "But looking down-sun, you won't see diddly squat."
"There's need to stop deluding ourselves," Britt told Space.com, advocating the creation of a 1-to-10 scoring system for lunar art, with prizes for the worst and best visualizations
"What I want to do is land on the moon way safer and easier," he added, "so you need to ask yourself what's missing from these depictions. We are training the public to think this is easy."
To support his concern, Britt spotlighted both Apollo moonwalker-taken imagery and the scenery as projected by artists, be it using paint brush or artificial intelligence-guided computer work.
"The sun angle washes out the rough terrain. Almost all the pictures taken from the surface give the very false impression of a flat, gentle terrain," Britt said. "The reality is that the lunar surface is heavily cratered, rough, very dusty and covered in regolith."
Most Apollo surface images were taken "down-sun" because looking "up-sun" was hard. "This leaves a very false impression of a flat moon with gentle terrain," Britt said.
Apollo was pretty lucky, Britt said, observing that several of the six human moon landings experienced tilt problems. For instance, Apollo 14 experienced a 7-degree tilt on landing, and Apollo 15 had an 11-degree tilt on touchdown.
Apollo 11 had to dodge a boulder field. Apollo 12 and Apollo 16 landed on the edge of big craters. "Even small craters can be meters deep," said Britt, recalling problems encountered by astronauts on their descent to the moon.
"The dust went as far as I could see in any direction and completely obliterated craters and anything else β¦ I couldn't tell what was underneath me," astronaut Pete Conrad said during an Apollo 12 debriefing. "I knew I was in a generally good area, and I was just going to have to bite the bullet and land, because I couldn't tell whether there was a crater down there or not."
Similarly, Apollo 16 commander John Young said: "I couldn't judge slope out the window worth a hoot, and that's the truth. Even down low. The ground looks flat, but I'm sure it would look flat if it had been a 6-8 degree slope, too. I don't see any way around that."
A flat, crater-free, dustless moon is a staple of imagery issued by NASA, the European Space Agency, other space agencies, and even private space firms, said Britt.
"Yes, these are artists' impressions," Britt said, "but somebody is telling the artists what to draw. I love the idea of landing and operating on a moon without dust, small craters, and rough terrain. However, we see the misconception of a flat, gentle moon everywhere."
"Commercial providers are just as bad. No dust, almost no small craters, no tipping problems. Yes, these are artists' impressions, and they are getting it wrong," said Britt. "NASA knows better. All these people should know better, but don't. Let's not fool the public. We owe them better data."
GOLDEN, Colorado β Scientists are engaged in research with an eye toward transforming the cold climes of Mars into a far more habitable place for Earthlings in the future.
One notion proposed is the dispersion of an aerosol meant to help warm up Mars' atmosphere. The idea is projected to be a first step toward terraforming the Red Planet. Also emerging recently as a new field of study is "applied astrobiology," which seeks to appraise what would be needed to create sustainable habitats and biospheres beyond Earth.
Scientists have drawn up a research blueprint for assessing the viability of warming the Red Planet, outlining what it might take to make Mars a place in space where life can thrive. Importantly, that roadmap does not presuppose that warming Mars is desirable. Rather, its purpose is to identify what is required for Mars to be warmed, what it would cost and what could go wrong.
Edwin Kite, an associate professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, detailed the plan here at a Space Resources Roundtable, which was held from June 2 to June 5 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines.
Kite's talk showcased a mission concept prototype to validate aerosol dispersal to warm Mars' atmosphere as a first step toward terraforming the Red Planet.
"Creating sustainable habitats and biospheres beyond Earth is an enormous scientific and technical challenge, but it's one we'll have to surmount if we're going to extend life beyond Earth," Kite told Space.com.
"We do not yet know enough to create a biosphere from scratch," he added. "Applied astrobiology, like planetary science, requires contributions from many disciplines."
Kite said that relatively modest research investments can keep open the option of extending life beyond Earth as the scientific exploration of Mars continues.
The roadmap, Kite explained to Space.com, identifies several approaches to warming Mars. Solid-state greenhouse membranes, he said, offer the nearest-term benefits, with direct applications to moisture farming and life support at human bases on Mars.
Strengthening Mars' natural greenhouse effect might warm large regions of the globe, Kite noted, although many aspects remain to be worked out. Each approach carries scientific and technical risks that research must address, he added.
Whether Mars can support a biosphere, however, is unknown. But, if activated, a biosphere on Mars would help sustain large numbers of people in bases beyond Earth, sparking the conditions for a centuries-long process of atmospheric oxygen buildup.
The questions raised by the possibility of warming Mars are numerous. But the immediate unanswered questions are identifiable, Kite suggested, and can be addressed with a focused research campaign.
He acknowledged that a consensus on moving forward requires more data on two fronts: whether Mars could support life in the future, and whether there's life on Mars today.
An approach to warming Mars would be inherently modular, in that it could be done by many sites in parallel, Kite suggested. An aspect of the endeavor may well involve orbiting reflectors for warming intermediate-sized areas, such as human bases.
Kite is also a resident researcher at the Berkeley, California-based Astera Institute, which was founded to steer science and technology towards an abundant future. And he's a participating scientist on the mission of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which has been exploring the Red Planet since August 2012.
Being scoped out by Kite and fellow researchers is a potential technology demonstration on Mars, an automated payload that would test an aerosol release concept. It would discharge less than 2 pounds (about 1 kilogram) of sub-micron artificial particles and laser track that dispersal to an altitude of roughly 1,500 feet (500 meters), to confirm ascent of the plume into the skies of Mars.
Kite said that dispenser requirements are particularly challenging. For example, researchers will need to show that it works on Earth before launching a demonstration mission to Mars.
There has been "prototyping progress," Kite said, with an experimental setup designed and built for rapid deployment.
To trial-run the particle dispersal concept and plume tracking technology, the plan calls for use of NASA's Planetary Aeolian Laboratory (PAL) at Ames Research Center in California this year. PAL is a unique facility used to support experiments under different planetary atmospheric environments, including Earth, Mars and Saturn's largest moon, Titan.
To help evaluate the feasibility of terraforming Mars, Kite points to the need for better maps of subsurface water ice on that world; climate-monitoring orbiters to observe the planet's natural variability; the return of Red Planet samples to Earth for study; and international cooperation.
"Mars sample return will be done by China's space agency. The original plan for their Tianwen-3 mission was to grab some rocks from wherever and then head back to Earth," Kite said. "The new plan is to go around with a helicopter and collect rocks from a wide area. I'm hopeful that they share their Martian samples, allowing all the world's labs to have a crack at them."
Then there's the prospect of an International Mars Ice Mapper, Kite said, a proposed Mars orbiter that's been studied by NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). However, that mission appears at this moment to have been shelved.
"It's a good idea and could always come back," said Kite. "We should search for deep aquifers using electromagnetic soundings β that's the best strategy. We don't know whether there's still liquid water deep underground. There are big gaps in our knowledge about Mars."
Kite reported that warming Mars with artificial aerosol appears feasible, backed by workshops about creating a "Green Mars" and applied astrobiology.
If early findings from aerosol release demonstrations on Mars prove positive, Kite said, those results would provide the quantitative basis for "government-scale programs" to evaluate whether extending habitable conditions beyond Earth is achievable, at what cost and on what timescale.
"Even under optimistic assumptions, warming at kilometer scale is at least a decade away, and wider environmental modification would require sustained investment over many decades beyond that," states the recent research paper, which Kite led.
"Relatively modest research investments would keep open the option of extending life beyond Earth as Marsβ scientific exploration continues," Kite and his colleagues concluded.
An asteroid now bears the name of beloved musician Elliott Smith, thanks to one ambitious filmmaker.
Elliott Smith passed away at the age of 34 in 2003, but his impact and his music continue to connect with people around the world. And his influence has now extended to space, thanks to independent filmmaker Orlando Campopiano, who worked to get an asteroid named "Elliottsmith."
"I hope this introduces at least one new person to Elliott's brilliant discography, and I'm happy to see a permanent legacy in the stars! To have this tribute to him blessed by the estate and discoverers is also a great honor," Campopiano told Stereogum.
While listening to the song "Shooting Star," from Smith's album "From a Basement on the Hill," which was released in 2004 following his death, Campopiano had the idea to try and get an asteroid named after Smith, he told Stereogum.
He took this inspiration and ran with it, connecting with Smith's estate and working together to submit a proposal to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which gives official names to cosmic objects, including asteroids. Maybe there are some Elliott Smith fans at the IAU, because the organization actually said yes.
With this positive response, Asteroid (861969) 2014 OS439 is now officially "Elliottsmith."
The asteroid was discovered back in 2014 by the Pan-STARRS 1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) project in Hawai'i.
The IAU's announcement of the renaming reads: "Steven Paul 'Elliott' Smith (1969β2003) was an influential, Oscar-nominated American songwriter. His intricate music left a lasting impact on many musicians. Asteroid 861969 honors his birth date, August 6, 1969. Smith often used celestial motifs in his work, notably in the song 'Shooting Star,' which, in hindsight, symbolizes his brief but brilliant light."
As this classification states, this asteroid is more than just a random rock in the sky. Its previous, numerical name 861969 happens to perfectly mirror Smith's birthday. This cosmic alignment makes it feel like this naming was truly meant to be.
You can get a look at the asteroid's place in our solar system on the small-body website of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which you can find here.
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