A violent asteroid collision roughly 800 million years ago likely triggered a bombardment of the inner solar system, according to research led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The breakup of a parent body in the main asteroid belt, which formed the Eulalia asteroid family, sent a cascade of debris toward Earth, the Moon, and … Read more
A PhD student at the University of Sydney has successfully synthesized cosmic dust in a laboratory, providing a new method to study the chemical origins of life. By using a vacuum-sealed environment to simulate interstellar conditions, Linda Losurdo created carbon-rich particles that match the infrared signatures of dust found in space, according to findings published … Read more
A rare type of space rock known as a CO chondrite is the likely culprit behind the mass extinction event that wiped out 75 percent of all species 66 million years ago. Researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC), along with colleagues in Paris, Brussels, and Vienna, identified the impactor by analyzing nickel isotopes … Read more
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft confirmed that the asteroid Donaldjohanson is a fragment of the ancient Erigone family, formed by a massive collision 155 million years ago. Data published in the journal Science by a team led by Simone Marchi of the Southwest Research Institute shows the asteroid possesses a peanut-like shape and iron-bearing minerals, indicating it … Read more
The Great Rewrite: Why We Are Re-evaluating the History of the Stars For centuries, the story of 1P/Halley has been a triumph of the Enlightenment—a tale of Edmond Halley using Newtonian physics to predict the return of a celestial wanderer. But recent research is flipping the script. The discovery that a medieval monk, Eilmer of … Read more
The Eternal Debate: Will Pluto Ever Be a Planet Again? For decades, the status of Pluto has been one of the most polarizing topics in astronomy. Once the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto was reclassified as a “dwarf planet” following a controversial decision by the scientific community. Now, the conversation has been reignited, … Read more
Asteroid Highways: Could Space Rocks Be the Key to Faster Mars Travel? For decades, a journey to Mars has been envisioned as a months-long undertaking. A one-way trip typically takes between seven and ten months using conventional trajectories. But a latest study suggests a potentially revolutionary shortcut, leveraging the orbital mechanics of asteroids to dramatically … Read more
Can Life Travel Between Planets? New Research Suggests It’s Possible Could a microbe hitch a ride on an asteroid and travel between planets? A groundbreaking new study from Johns Hopkins University suggests the answer might be yes. Researchers have demonstrated that a remarkably resilient bacterium, Deinococcus radiodurans, can survive the extreme pressures associated with an … Read more
NASA’s DART Mission: A New Era of Planetary Defense In a landmark achievement, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission has not only altered the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos around its companion, Didymos, but has also measurably shifted the orbit of the entire binary system around the Sun. This marks the first time humanity … Read more
Brazil’s Newest Treasure: The 6.3-Million-Year-Old Geraisites A remarkable discovery in Brazil has unveiled a vast field of tektites – natural glasses formed by the intense heat of meteorite impacts. Stretching across an impressive 900 kilometers (560 miles), this newly identified strewn field, dubbed the “geraisites” after the Minas Gerais state where they were first found, … Read more