What happens when a giant asteroid hits Earth?

Earth is in a cosmic shooting gallery. With so many asteroids zipping around, how can we find them all before they find us?

NASA's InSight lander on Mars is trying to use its robotic arm to get the mission’s heat flow probe, or mole, digging again. InSight team engineer Ashitey Trebbi-Ollennu, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, explains what has been attempted and the game plan for the coming weeks. The next tactic they'll try will be "pinning" the mole against the hole it's in.

The upcoming season will feature stories of asteroid exploration.

What can you see in the October sky? Join the global celebration of International Observe the Moon Night on Oct. 5th, then try to catch the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune, which are well placed for viewing in the late night sky.

In this month's sky, look for lovely crescent Moons at the start and end of the month. The September equinox brings the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere. And Mars is at solar conjunction, meaning it has disappeared from night skies! (When will it return?) More info at https://go.nasa.gov/2Hx3bMn

See NASA’s next Mars rover quite literally coming together inside a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This behind-the-scenes look at what goes into building and preparing a rover for Mars, including extensive tests in simulated space environments, was captured from March to July 2019. The rover is expected to launch to the Red Planet in summer 2020 and touch down in February 2021.

The Mars 2020 Rover is preparing to launch to the Red Planet in July 2020, but it doesn't have a name yet. We're asking K-12 students across the United States to send in essays with their best name ideas by Nov. 1, 2019.

What can you see this month? In the August sky, look for the "shooting stars" of the annual Perseid meteor shower for some stargazing delights, but be warned — the bright Moon will overwhelm the fainter meteors this year. Plus, the Moon's evening visits to Jupiter and Saturn.

A team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, install the legs and wheels — otherwise known as the mobility suspension — on the Mars 2020 rover. The imagery for this accelerated time-lapse was taken on June 13, 2019, from a camera above the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 clean room.