Visualization of the Sun-Earth Lagrange points. Orbital mechanics is a fun subject, as it involves a lot of seemingly empty space that’s nevertheless full of very real forces, all of which must be ...

Advanced space travel relies on a fundamental understanding of the restricted three-body problem (RTBP), in which one of the three bodies—typically a spacecraft—is so small that its gravity doesn’t ...

Physicists have discovered a tiny asteroid, about one kilometer wide, that is locked into the same orbit as Earth—only the second such cosmic body of its type that has been identified to date. And now ...

Earth just picked up a hitchhiker. Astronomers recently determined that the asteroid 2020 XL 5, discovered in 2020, wasn't just passing by like so many of its kin but actually residing at one of the ...

Research has shown that the Earth trails an asteroid barely a kilometer across in its orbit about the Sun – only the second such body to have ever been spotted. It goes around the Sun on average two ...

Reliably guiding and capturing optical waves is central to the functioning of various contemporary technologies, including communication and information processing systems. The most conventional ...

David Rothery is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University. He is co-leader of the European Space Agency's Mercury Surface and Composition Working Group, and a Co-Investigator on MIXS ...

The White House recently released a “National Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Hazards and Planetary Defense.” The document addresses the hazard of NEO impacts by ...