So, about that asteroid near Earth ...

Don't consider this a count-down to doomsday, but on February 15 an asteroid is going to come pretty close to Earth.

And this is only one of thousands of objects that are destined to one day enter our neighborhood in space.

"There are lots of asteroids that we're watching that we haven't yet ruled out an Earth impact, but all of them have an impact probability that is very, very low," Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said at a press briefing.

This particular asteroid is called 2012 DA14. NASA scientists reiterated Thursday that people have nothing to worry about.

"No Earth impact is possible," Yeomans said.The asteroid is thought to be 45 meters -- about half a football field -- long. It will come no closer than 17,100 miles from our planet's surface.

An object the size of 2012 DA14 appears to hit Earth about once every 1,200 years, Yeomans said.

"There really hasn't been a close approach that we know about for an object of this size," Yeomans said.

On its close approach to Earth, the asteroid will be traveling at 7.8 kilometers per second, roughly eight times the speed of a bullet from a high-speed rifle, he said.

If it were to hit our planet -- which is, again, impossible -- it would collide with the energy of 2.4 megatons of TNT, Yeomans said. This is comparable to the event in Tunguska, Russia, in 1908. That asteroid entered the atmosphere and exploded, leveling trees over an area of 820 square miles -- about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island. Like that rock, 2012 DA14 would likely not leave a crater.

Here's a comforting thought: Meteorites enter the Earth's atmosphere all the time. About 100 tons of rocks come in from space every day, Yeomans said. They are mostly small, from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a human fist.

If you have a telescope at least a few inches in diameter, you would see it as a small point of light moving across the sky, said Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

You'll have to be located in Eastern Europe, Asia or Australia for the best telescope-aided view, scientists said. It won't be visible to the naked eye.

More on the February 15 asteroid approach

What else is out there?

So, we know that this particular asteroid isn't going to hit us, but how about all of those other giant rocks floating nearby beyond our atmosphere?

NASA says 9,672 objects have been classified as Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, as of February 5. Near Earth Objects are comets or asteroids in orbits that allow them to enter Earth's neighborhood.

There's an important distinction between these objects: Comets are mostly water, ice and dust, while asteroids are mostly rock or metal. Both comets and asteroids have hit Earth in the past.

More than 1,300 Near Earth Objects have been classified as potentially hazardous to Earth, meaning that someday, they may come close or hit Earth. NASA is monitoring these objects and updating their locations as new information comes in. Right now, scientists aren't warning of any eminent threats.

Yeomans and colleagues are using telescopes on the ground and in space to nail down the precise orbit of objects that might threaten Earth and predict whether the planet could be hit.

Observatories around the world send their findings to the NASA-funded Minor Planet Center, which keeps a database of all known asteroids and comets in our solar system.

NASA also has a space probe tracking asteroids to learn more about them. The Dawn probe was launched in 2007 and has already sent back dramatic pictures from the giant asteroid Vesta.

The spacecraft is now heading to the dwarf planet Ceres. Vesta and Ceres are the two most massive objects in the main asteroid belt.

A new asteroid adventure in 2016

A mission that's scheduled to launch in 2016 will teach scientists even more about asteroids.

OSIRIS-REx will visit an asteroid called 1999 RQ36, take a sample of at least 2.1 ounces and bring it back to Earth.

"This is going to be the largest sample of an extraterrestrial object returned to Earth since end of the Apollo missions over 40 years ago," said Edward Beshore, deputy principal investigator for the mission, who is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The probe will arrive at the asteroid in 2018, study it, then bring back the sample in 2023.

1999 RQ36 is made of materials "almost identical to those that were present when the solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago," he said. That means studying this asteroid could yield greater understanding about the sources of organic molecules and water that gave rise to life.

This asteroid, like the one that will fly by on February 15, is considered a near-Earth object. The mission would further clarify the threat that this particular object poses, and better predict the orbits of other near-Earth asteroids, Beshore said.

Scientists at the University of Arizona are collaborating with NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems on this mission.

To better predict the orbits of hazardous objects, this group is looking at the Yarkovsky effect, a force created when the asteroid absorbs sunlight and re-radiates it as heat.

The effect is, at first glance, quite small -- Beshore cited his colleague Steven Chesley's comparison of this effect to the force you feel when you hold grapes in your hand. But over time, it's an important consideration when trying to understand where an asteroid is headed.

"That force, applied over millions of years, can literally move mountains of rock around," Beshore said.

We can't say this enough: Don't panic over it.

An asteroid is coming, and scientists are excited. Fear not, Earth is safe

It is heading toward Earth at 17,450 miles per hour, according to NASA, and the tug of our planet's gravitational field will cause it to accelerate when it gets here.

But it's not going to strike us, when it passes by on February 15. NASA is adamant about this.

"Its orbit is very well-known," said Dr. Don Yeomans, NASA specialist for near-Earth objects. "We know exactly where it's going to go, and it cannot hit the Earth."

But it will give the Blue Planet the closest shave by any object its size in known history, Yeomans said. Gravity will cause it to fly a curved path, tugging it closer to Earth's surface than most GPS or television satellites.While the asteroid is moving at a good clip, space rockets have to accelerate to an even higher speed to escape Earth's gravity and make it into space. Though 2012 DA14 will be flying more slowly, its trajectory will keep it from falling to Earth.

Getting a look at 2012 DA14

Star gazers in Eastern Europe, Asia or Australia might be able to see it with binoculars or consumer telescopes. It will not be visible to the naked eye, because it's small, "about half the size of a football field," Yeomans said.

There are millions of asteroids in our solar system, and they come in all dimensions -- from the size of a beach ball to a large mountain, NASA said.

Researchers are looking forward to getting such a close look at an asteroid, as it flies from south to north past Earth, coming as close as 17,200 miles to our planet's surface. NASA will ping it with a signal from a satellite dish for a few days to get a better idea of its makeup.

Astronomers think there are about half a million asteroids the size this one near Earth, NASA said, but less than one percent have been detected.

Twenty years ago, no one would likely have discovered 2012 DA14, Yeomans said. Scientists spotted it nearly a year ago from an observatory in the south of Spain. Today, specialists track asteroids' paths 100 years into future.

They do so less to assess any possible threat of impact with Earth and more to explore what opportunities they offer. "These objects are important for science. They're important for our future resources," Yeomans said.

Asteroids are potential gold mines

Asteroids can be chock full of metals and other materials, which could be mined for use on earth or on space stations. NASA has discussed the possibility of capturing near-Earth asteroids and placing them into Earth's orbit to study them and extract their resources.

At least two start-up companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, plan to mine asteroids and sell the acquired bounty on Earth and in space.

Being able to exploit asteroids' resources would allow humans to fly farther out into the solar system, build stations a long way from Earth and supply them with materials gathered out in space.

Some asteroids, for example, are made of ice, NASA said, which could be used as drinking water for a distant space platform.

What if one like this did hit us?

An asteroid this size passes this close to Earth only every 40 years and collides with it only once every 1,200 years.

If NASA turns out to be wrong about this one not hitting the planet -- and they won't be -- then Asteroid 2012 DA14 would not destroy the world in any case, Yeomans said.

An asteroid made of metal that was about the same size collided with Earth 50,000 years ago, creating the mile wide "Meteor Crater" in Arizona and obliterating everything for 50 miles around, he said.

2012 DA14 is likely made of stone, which would do much less damage.

In 1908 a similar type asteroid entered the atmosphere and exploded over Tunguska, Russia, leveling trees over an area of 820 square miles -- about two thirds the size of Rhode Island.Not Earth shattering, but you still wouldn't want to live nearby.

NASA, Texas towns mark Columbia disaster

It started as a dot -- a bright, white star that raced across the Southwest.

Over Texas, the dot became a streak that thickened, then spawned smaller streaks -- "little sparklies," Linda Steed recalled.

Then came the sound -- "a big, rolling boom," she said. "The dog started barking like crazy."

A decade ago, 200,000 feet above Steed's driveway in Nacogdoches, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart on re-entry. All seven astroFriday, NASA marks the anniversary with tributes to the crew of Columbia and 10 other astronauts lost in the space agency's two previous fatal accidents -- the 1986 explosion that destroyed Columbia's sister ship Challenger, and the launch pad fire that killed Apollo 1's three-man crew in 1967. All three anniversaries fall within a week -- the Apollo fire on January 27, Challenger on January 28 and Columbia on February 1."I remember looking up at the sky and thinking, 'Is that it? Is that the end of Rick's life?' " she told CNN.

In an instant, she was a single mother with two young children. She was angry, frustrated. But she said NASA is "the best of the best."

"They're human. They're flawed," said Husband-Thompson, who remarried five years ago. "They did the best they possibly could. Nobody maliciously caused this to happen."

Nevertheless, she said, the grief still lingers.

"The Lord definitely healed our hearts tremendously, but it's a lifelong process," she said. "I don't think that pain ever completely goes away."

Commemorations will also be held in some of the towns where the orbiter's wreckage rained down that bright Saturday morning. One of them is Hemphill, Texas, about 170 miles north of Houston, where a roadside monument and a museum commemorate the disaster and the volunteers who combed the surrounding woods for pieces of the spacecraft."Some of them, you knew instantly what they were," said Belinda Gay, one of those searchers. "We would find some of the instrument panel that was in the shuttle cockpit. You could still see the numbers and the switches. You knew that if you found a can of caviar with Velcro on the back of it, you know it's not supposed to be in the woods."

The remains of the shuttle's crew were found near Hemphill, along with the nose, part of the landing gear and much of the cabin. In addition, two members of a helicopter crew engaged in the search were killed in a crash the following month.

Gay now leads the Sabine County Columbia Memorial Committee. Unlike Steed, whose space buff sister-in-law called her outside that morning, she was getting ready for a relative's baby shower and didn't see the breakup.

"My house started vibrating, and the pictures on the wall started shaking, and then I heard two sonic booms," she said. "We knew something was up."

Gay's husband was president of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, and she led the group's Ladies' Auxiliary. Hemphill's VFW hall was quickly turned into a dining hall for the search teams, and it will host lunch for the guests at Friday's ceremony.

Overall, NASA recovered about 84,000 pieces of the orbiter, about 40% of the craft, scattered from the Texas panhandle to Fort Polk, Louisiana. Pieces turned up as late as 2011, when the state's brutal drought uncovered an aluminum fuel tank on the bottom of Lake Nacogdoches.

An investigation determined Columbia was doomed almost from the instant its 16-day mission began. A piece of insulating foam from its external fuel tank broke away, striking and cracking a panel on the orbiter's left wing. The damaged panel allowed searing hot gases to seep into the wing on re-entry, causing the craft to lose control and disintegrate.

The three surviving shuttles returned to space starting in 2005. The last mission was in 2011, thirty years after Columbia -- the first of the class -- made its maiden voyage.

NASA and the families of the crew decided to preserve its wreckage, which now sits on the 16th floor of the massive Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral. For scientists, it's a "treasure trove" that lets them study the material used in the spacecraft, said Mike Ciannilli, the caretaker of the orbiter's remains.

And for young NASA workers, it's a place to see firsthand why failure can't be an option.

"When you actually walk amongst Columbia and you talk about the accident and you talk about the lessons learned and how you can do the best job you can do to help prevent this from ever happening again, that's very powerful," Ciannilli said.nauts aboard died.

U.S. spaceship ventures plan to send test pilots into orbit as early as 2015

Americans could be flying into orbit on U.S.-built spaceships again as early as 2015 — but the first fliers won't be NASA astronauts or millionaire space tourists.

Instead, they'll be commercial test pilots, employed by the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp., SpaceX or maybe even a dark-horse company like Blue Origin, the venture funded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Those four companies provided updates on their efforts to build new spaceships capable of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station during a Wednesday news briefing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. One of the companies, Blue Origin, is wrapping up its work for NASA and is no longer receiving money through the Commercial Crew Program, or CCP. But SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada are splitting more than $1 billion that's to be paid out through 2014.

NASA's manager for the Commercial Crew Program, Ed Mango, said the agency and its commercial partners are already talking about "Phase 2" for the program. The certification requirements and timetable for Phase 2 are expected to be set this year, with contracts awarded by May 2014, Mango said. "We believe that there’ll be more than one, probably two, three, maybe others, that will be ready to compete for Phase 2," he said.

That phase would move the program forward to 2017, by which time NASA expects to be flying its astronauts on U.S. launch vehicles for the first time since the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011. In the meantime, NASA will be paying the Russians more than $60 million per seat for round trips to the space station.

"Our target was to repatriate that industry back to the United States, and that's what we're doing," said Mark Sirangelo, chairman of SNC Space Systems at Sierra Nevada.

Here's how the companies' plans are shaping up:

SpaceX: Former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, SpaceX's commercial crew project manager, said his company is working toward a launch pad abort test by the end of the year at Kennedy Space Center. An in-flight test that would demonstrate the ability to abort a launch safely during ascent, "at the worst possible moment," is planned for April 2014, he said. If SpaceX sticks to its schedule, it would use its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule for a manned test flight in mid-2015, and would send test pilots to the space station by the end of 2015. "We're not selling tickets. Don't call our toll-free number," Reisman joked.

Sierra Nevada Corp.: Sirangelo said his company was planning to drop its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle from a carrier airplane for its first autonomous, free-flying glide test in the first quarter of this year. That would be followed by a series of autonomous and crewed aerodynamic test flights, similar to the tests conducted by NASA using the prototype shuttle Enterprise in the late 1970s. Then Sierra Nevada's team would launch the Dream Chaser into space — first on suborbital test flights, and eventually into orbit. Last year, the company said manned orbital flights could begin in 2016.

The Boeing Co: John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for Boeing's commercial crew program, said his company proposed conducting a three-day orbital spaceflight with a Boeing crew in 2016. The head of Boeing's flight test program is former NASA astronaut Chris Ferguson, who commanded Atlantis' crew during the final flight of the shuttle program. "He is defining crew requirements," Mulholland said. Before the test pilots fly, Boeing will conduct an unmanned orbital trial of its CST-100 space capsule, plus an altitude abort test.

Blue Origin: The company that Bezos founded in 2000 is not receiving NASA funding during the current phase of the agency's spaceship development program — but Blue Origin's president and program manager, Rob Meyerson, said he's still doing business with the space agency. "We're working with NASA to extend our Space Act Agreement in an unfunded manner," Meyerson said. The company is continuing to test its BE-3 rocket engine and work on its next prototype propulsion vehicle. Eventually, Blue Origin aims to launch crews on suborbital as well as orbital spaceflights.

The plans for future flights are dependent on continued NASA support — and Phil McAlister, NASA's commercial spaceflight development director, acknowledged that "the budget is going to be an extremely challenging topic."

If NASA's funding is reduced, Reisman said his company would continue to move toward manned flights, but at a slower pace. "Human spaceflight is our reason for being. We are in this for the long haul," Reisman said. "There will be impacts to cost and schedule, should funding dry up. But we're going to get there eventually."

A possible alien planet discovered

A possible alien planet discovered

A possible alien planet discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope is the most Earth-like world yet detected beyond our solar system, scientists say.

With a radius that is just 1.5 times that of Earth, the potential planet is what a so-called "super-Earth," meaning it is just slightly larger than the Earth. The candidate planet orbits a star similar to the sun at a distance that falls within the "habitable zone" — the region where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. Scientists say the planet, if confirmed, could be a prime candidate to host alien life.

"This was very exciting because it's our fist habitable-zone super Earth around a sun-type star," astronomer Natalie Batalha, a Kepler co-investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said Tuesday (Jan. 8) here at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The find could be the closest so far to an Earth twin beyond the solar system, she said. The object's host star is a G-type star just slightly cooler than our own sun. [17 Billion Earths in the Milky Way (Infographic)]

"It's orbiting a star that’s very much like our sun," Batalha added. "Previously the ones we saw were orbiting other types of stars."

The object takes 242 days to orbit its star (compared to Earth's 365 days) and is about three-quarters of the Earth-sun distance from its parent. The Earth orbits 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun on average, a distance known as 1 astronomical unit.

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"It's a big deal," astrophysicist Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, told :

"It's definitely a good candidate for life."

Based on its characteristics, the possible planet may or may not be rocky, but it certainly has the possibility of liquid water.

"Maybe there's no land life, but perhaps very clever dolphins," Livio joked.

The possible planet is called KOI 172.02 (KOI stands for Kepler Object of Interest, a designation assigned to all planet candidates found by the telescope until they are confirmed as planets). The discovery was announced at the meeting Monday (Jan. 7) by Christopher Burke of the SETI Institute as part of a batch of 461 new planet candidates found by Kepler.

Kepler finds potential planets by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars caused by planets passing in front of them, blocking some of their light. Astronomers have multiple ways to confirm that these candidates are actual planets, such as looking for small variations in the timing of the planets' passes in front of stars caused by the gravitational tug of other planets in the system.

Kepler launched in 2009 and was recently granted an extended mission until at least 2016. The telescope has detected 2,740 candidate planets thus far. While just 105 of them have been confirmed to date, Kepler scientists estimate that more than 90 percent will end up being the real deal.

"There is no better way to kick off the start of the Kepler extended mission than to discover more possible outposts on the frontier of potentially life-bearing worlds," Burke said in a statement.

Spectacular images of Europe in the midnight 01.01.2013

Europe in the midnight 01.01.2013

Although this photo spread Internet expanses as "spectacular photos Europe at midnight 1 January 2013. Recorded by NASA," we'll have to disappoint you, though someone just played well in Photoshop.

Maybe one day New Year's footage from space really look like that - when NASA made ​​an even better photo equipment, when the fireworks on the ground look like a nuclear war, and when all countries regardless of the time zone they decide to welcome the New Year at the same time.