A sizable space rock will make its closest approach to Earth in four centuries on Wednesday evening (Feb. 15), but there's nothing to fear. The near-Earth asteroid 2005 YY128 will zoom within 2.8 million miles (4.5 million km) of our planet at 7:46 p.m. EST on Wednesday (0046 GMT on Feb. 16) — closer than it's gotten to us in more than 400 years, according to EarthSky.org (opens in new tab) . Still, that's about 12 times the distance from Earth to the moon , so there's no chance the asteroid will hit us on this pass, experts stress. As its name suggests, 2005 YY128 was discovered in 2005, by astronomers at Kitt Peak Observatory in southern Arizona. Over the past 17 years, researchers have mapped its orbit with a high degree of precision. Their observations, however, haven't nailed down 2005 YY128's size. The best astronomers can give us is a diameter range — somewhere between 1,903 feet (580 meters) and 4,265 feet (1.3 km), according to EarthSky. 2005...
Astronomers have developed a new technique for identifying "starspots" — cool, dark regions of stars akin to the sunspots on our star, the sun . These regions are believed to form on the surfaces of stars when strong magnetic fields tangle and suppress the churning of plasma, thus impeding light from escaping from that region of the star. The research could shed light on why some stars are highly active, and could eventually help astronomers better define stars' habitable zones , the regions around stars where planets could sustain liquid water at their surfaces and thus have the potential to support life. "Our study is the first to precisely characterize the spottiness of stars and use it to directly test theories of stellar magnetism," Lyra Cao, an astronomer at The Ohio State University and lead author of the research, said in a statement (opens in new tab) . "This technique is so precise and broadly applicable that it can become a powerful n...