Asteroid discovered by Carnegie’s Scott Sheppard right before it zooms past Earth

While surveying the sky for distant objects, astronomer Scott Sheppard discovered a new asteroid a little closer to home. Asteroid 2020 YE5 poses no immediate risk, but it will come very close to Earth. The asteroid will zoom past only 437,691 km away from Earth, almost as close as our own Moon. It will be at its nearest on Friday, January 22 at around 9:08 AM EST (14:08 UTC). According to Sheppard, someone with a good backyard telescope could catch a glimpse. 

Scientists and philosopher team up, propose a new way to categorize minerals

Carnegie’s Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison teamed up with CU Boulder philosophy of science professor Carol Cleland to propose that scientists address this shortcoming with a new “evolutionary system” of mineral classification—one that includes historical data and reflects changes in the diversity and distribution of minerals through more than 4 billion years of Earth’s history.

Alaska’s Islands of the Four Mountains could be single giant volcano

A small group of volcanic islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain could actually be part of a single, previously unrecognized giant volcano in the same category as Yellowstone, according to work from a research team, including Carnegie’s Diana Roman, Lara Wagner, Hélène Le Mével, and Daniel Portner, as well as recently departed postdoc Helen Janiszewski (now at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), who will present their findings at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting next week.