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This Hubble Space Telescope image of the asteroid Dimorphos was taken on December 19, 2022, nearly four months after the asteroid was impacted by NASA?s DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). Hubble?s sensitivity reveals a few dozen boulders knocked off the asteroid by the force of the collision. These are among the faintest objects Hubble has ever photographed inside the solar system. The free-flung boulders range in size from three feet to 22 feet across, based on Hubble photometry. They are drifting away from the asteroid at a little more than a half-mile per hour. The discovery yields invaluable insights into the behavior of a small asteroid when it is hit by a projectile for the purpose of altering its trajectory.

NASA's asteroid-smashing space debris spotted by Hubble telescope

20 July 2023

The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the results of smashing a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphous

Distant planet may be the first known to share its orbit with another

19 July 2023

Exoplanet PDS 70b, a gas giant seven times the mass of Jupiter, appears to share an orbit with a ball of dust around the mass of Earth's moon, which could be forming a new planet

Space Week: A seven-day tour of the cosmos

18 July 2023

To celebrate the launch of our new podcast, Dead Planets Society, New Scientist editors have selected some of our most delightful premium articles about the solar system and beyond

Could we put out the sun with a sun-sized orb of water?

18 July 2023

What would happen if we pushed a sun-sized ball of water into our star? The Dead Planets Society podcast dives into the possibilities

#1 Dead Planets Society: Kill The Sun

17 July 2023

The sun is the centre of our solar system, the parent body to all the planets, unquestionably the most important cosmic object for life on Earth. But what if we were to destroy it?It turns out that is easier said than done. In the...

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Dead Planets Society #1: Kill The Sun

17 July 2023

The sun is the centre of our solar system, the parent body to all the planets, unquestionably the most important cosmic object for life on Earth. But what if we were to destroy it?It turns out that is easier said than done. In the premier episode of...

Asteroid City review: Is Wes Anderson film all style over substance?

7 June 2023

A junior astronomy competition is spectacularly derailed by world-changing events in this star-studded film by Wes Anderson, but what is really going on? It’s complicated

The are thosands of small pieces of junk orbiting Earth (as well as thousands of satellites)

Quantum sensors could detect space debris from its gravitational pull

30 May 2023

Devices based on quantum properties of very cold and very small crystals could be mounted on satellites and sense space debris that could collide with them

Butterflies evolved 100 million years ago in North America

15 May 2023

Many researchers thought butterflies first evolved in Asia, but a global genetic analysis suggests they arose in North America, well before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct

Absolutely enormous asteroid belt discovered around a nearby star

8 May 2023

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spot strange asteroid belts around the nearby star Fomalhaut, along with evidence for at least three planets