New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the Sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the planets formed. The results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, add to an emerging understanding of how…
Tag: meteorites
Scientists Solve a Mystery By Firing a Laser at the Moon
“The moon is drifting away,” reports the New York Times. Every year, it gets about an inch and a half farther from us. Hundreds of millions of years from now, our companion in the sky will be distant enough that there will be no more total solar eclipses. For decades, scientists have measured the moon’s retreat by firing a laser at…
An Unusual Meteorite, More Valuable Than Gold, May Hold Life’s Building Blocks
Slashdot reader sciencehabit tells the strange story of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteor from “the cold void beyond Jupiter” that sent “blazing fireballs and rocks raining down on farms and fields.” On 23 April 2019, a space rock the size of a washing machine broke up in the skies over Aguas Zarcas, a village carved out of Costa Rica’s rainforest. The falling fragments,…
Perseid meteors 2020: All you need to know
In 2020, the peak mornings for the Perseid meteor shower – August 11, 12 and 13 – will feature meteors under moonlight. Here’s how to optimize your chances to catching some meteors during this year’s display. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-perseid-meteor-shower…
What’s the August birthstone?
Happy birthday, August babies! Your month has 2 birthstones, peridot and sardonyx. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/august-birthstone-sardonyx-peridot…
Space dust fossils are providing a new window onto Earth’s past
To be a meteorite hunter means to search for the unutterably rare. On any given patch of land the size of Wales, an average of two olive-sized space rocks will fall in a year. Scientists and collectors are forced to go to extreme lengths to find them, searching in deserts and Antarctica where they have a chance of spotting the stones…
Rock From Mars Heads Home After 600,000 Year Odyssey Across Space
A tiny piece of Martian basalt the size of a 10p coin will be launched on board a U.S. robot probe on Thursday and propelled towards the red planet on a seven-month journey to its home world. The Guardian reports: This extraordinary odyssey, the interplanetary equivalent of sending coals to Newcastle, will form a key part of Nasa’s forthcoming Mars 2020…
An origin story for a family of oddball meteorites
Most meteorites that have landed on Earth are fragments of planetesimals, the very earliest protoplanetary bodies in the solar system. Scientists have thought that these primordial bodies either completely melted early in their history or remained as piles of unmelted rubble. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-story-family-oddball-meteorites.html…
When the sky exploded: Remembering Tunguska
On June 30, 1908, the largest asteroid impact in recorded history occurred in remote Siberia, Russia. We now celebrate Asteroid Day each year on the anniversary the Tunguska event, as it is now known. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-tunguska-explosion…
Asteroid Day, June 30, live from Luxembourg
The 6th annual Asteroid Day will be held as a digital event on June 30, 2020. It’ll feature presentations with experts, panel discussions, and question-and-answer periods. Here’s how to participate. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/international-asteroid-day-june-30…