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In a few months, the orbit of a star deep in the core of the Milky Way will cause it to pass within 18.4 billion kilometers (11.4 billion miles) of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, Sagittarius A*. This event is of particular interest to physicists, as the plummeting star, S0-2, will speed up to 3 percent of the speed of light as it slingshots around its supermassive parent–a prime opportunity to test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
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An archaeological expedition aimed at plumbing the secrets of Chichen Itza’s underworld of the gods has uncovered the well-preserved remains of ancient humans and extinct animals that date back to the last ice age–far more than what the expedition’s members bargained for when they set out to map and explore the sacred network of Mayan caves. The nature of some of the fossils found there also hinted at the occurrence of a "catastrophic event" that embedded some of the bones in the walls of the cave.
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A newly-discovered asteroid, designated 2018 DU, made a close pass to the Earth over the weekend, coming within 280,000 kilometers (174,000 miles) of the planet on February 25. The ten-meter (33-foot) rock is the 17th known asteroid to have passed within the Moon’s orbit this year.

2018 DU wasn’t spotted until February 23, two days before its close approach, due to its small size–less than half of the size of the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013. It was first spotted by the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP), through the Rome-based organization’s Tenagra III telescope in Arizona. Although VTP made the 10-meter size estimate, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center says that 2018 DU could be as small as 4 meters (13 feet).
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