Author: Aarej Syed

AstroForge is an asteroid mining company that seeks to mine metallic asteroids for platinum-group metals (PGMs). AstroForge has launched a series of missions, each building on the last, that they hope will result in them achieving this ambitious goal.

On February 26, 2025, AstroForge launched the Odin mission, which would contribute to this iterative effort by determining if a near-Earth asteroid noticed by AstroForge was a metallic asteroid. Given that asteroid mining is a very young field, this was groundbreaking news. While Odin was unfortunately declared lost about a week later due to communication issues, AstroForge states that they will take the lessons they learned from Odin and apply them to their next asteroid mining mission, Vestri.

Read this article by Chapman Snowden, Chief of Staff at AstroForge, to learn more about the Odin mission, the events that unfolded, what AstroForge learned from Odin, and the company’s plans for the future, all from AstroForge’s perspective.

Our attempts to decode the cosmos does not stem solely from our curiosity to explore distant galaxies or probe the nature of dark matter: we are reaching out to understand our own existence! And therefore, ensuring the survival of our species and our planet stands at the forefront of our efforts to understanding the universe. So imagine spotting a massive asteroid on a collision course with Earth and having the tools to nudge it off its deadly trajectory. It’s not science fiction—it’s the bold vision behind the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission. But Hera isn’t just about safeguarding Earth; it’s also about exploring cosmic mysteries and testing cutting-edge technology in our ever-expanding universe.

Read the full article on Geolog, the official blog of the European Geosciences Union

NASA’s Goldstone planetary radar system recently recorded two near-Earth asteroids, 2024 MK and 2011 UL21, flying by our planet. Perhaps a tad alarming, one was only detected 13 days before it safely bypassed Earth, but scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California assure it never posed a threat. Still, the imagery they were able to collect has been extremely informative.

Read the full article on Space.com

An Austrian forest ranger picked up the rock in 1976. Decades later, scientists discovered the object’s origin story while digging through old photos.

Read the full article here

“I never thought I’d hold a piece of Mars.”

That quote could easily have been the tagline for a science fiction movie, but in this case, it’s from University of Texas at Dallas computer science junior Aarej Syed, who did, indeed, along with his classmates, hold a small piece of Mars during a spring class.

Researchers might have located the birthplace of 469219 Kamo‘oalewa, a small asteroid that has been described as Earth’s “mini-moon.” By analyzing Kamo‘oalewa’s geology and simulating different formation scenarios, they traced it back to a specific impact crater on the far side of the Moon.

Read the full article here