Earth’s biggest meteorite crater is Meteor Crater in Arizona. The 2nd biggest is Australia’s Wolfe Creek Crater, likely formed when a 50-foot meteor struck about 120,000 years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/how-old-is-wolf-creek-crater…
Tag: meteorites
First detection of sugars in meteorites gives clues to origin of life
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/sugars-in-meteorites Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-11-sugars-meteorites-clues-life.html…
NASA Consultant ‘Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s’
“A consultant for NASA slammed the agency for deliberately ignoring the results of the experiment he handled that showed signs of alien life on Mars,” reports the International Business Times. “According to the consultant, NASA refuses to conduct new life-detection tests on the Red Planet.” Engineer Gilbert Levin served as a principal investigator on NASA’s Viking missions, which sent two identical…
Falling Fireballs Crashed in Chile Last Week. They Weren’t Meteorites, Experts Say.
Chilean officials are investigating a curious collection of burning objects that fell onto parts of the country last week. Source: https://www.livescience.com/fireballs-fall-on-chile.html
Did a Prehistoric Asteroid Breakup Shower Earth With Enough Dust To Change the Climate?
Applehu Akbar writes: CNN reports this week on a paper describing a hypothesis that the breakup of a large asteroid 466 million years ago generated enough dust in Earth’s orbit to substantially change the terrestrial climate for an extended period. This would have triggered an ‘Ordovician icehouse’ climate event, with major effects on biology. “The 93-mile-wide asteroid was in the asteroid…
Did an asteroid collision cause an ice age on Earth?
Could a collision between 2 asteroids millions of miles away cause an ice age on Earth, some 460 million years ago? A new study of earthly rocks and sediments – plus micrometeorites that fell in Antarctica – suggest it’s possible. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/did-an-asteroid-collision-cause-an-ice-age-on-earth…
What asteroid Ryugu told us
The Hayabusa2 mission has confirmed that – if asteroid Ryugu or a similar asteroid were to come dangerously close to Earth – we’d need to take care in trying to divert it, lest it break up into fragments that might then impact Earth. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-ryugu-potential-to-break-apart-on-impact…
‘Martian CSI’ reveals how asteroid impacts created running water under red planet
Modern analysis of Martian meteorites has revealed unprecedented details about how asteroid impacts help create temporary sources of running water on the red planet. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-09-martian-csi-reveals-asteroid-impacts.html…
A concrete advantage for space explorers
When humans go to the Moon or Mars to stay, they will need to construct safe places in which to live and work. The most widely used building material on Earth, concrete, may be the answer. It is strong and durable enough to provide protection from cosmic radiation and meteorites and it may be possible to make it using materials available…
By continuously watching the moon, we could detect interstellar meteorites
When “Oumuamua crossed Earth’s orbit on October 19th, 2017, it became the first interstellar object ever to be observed by humans. These and subsequent observations, rather than dispelling the mystery of “Oumuamua’s true nature, only deepened it. The debate raged about whether it was an asteroid or a comet, with some even suggesting it could be an extraterrestrial solar sail. Source:…