The source of water on Earth, the Moon and planets in our solar system is hotly debated. Some in the planetary science community argued that it came from asteroids and comets. Now they have proof.
Waves can be generated in lakes and other bodies of water when seismic energy travels through land.
Leo Roomets / Unsplash
We’re finding more near-Earth objects all the time, and the challenge is to identify those that could potentially hit us. So how come we missed one that caused a huge blast in December?
Comet 46P/Wirtanen captured on November 15 this year using the remote iTelescope (Siding Springs Observatory, Australia).
Flickr/Victor R Ruiz
The comet 46P/Wirtanen is just 1.2km in size but it should be visible in the night sky this Saturday as it makes a close approach to Earth this year. And don’t forget the Geminids meteor shower.
Expect a spectacular display of 120 or more meteors per hour – some of them brightly coloured.
An ice-sheet in Greenland’s Inglefield Land is hiding the Hiawatha crater.
Natural History Museum of Denmark, Cryospheric Sciences Lab, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
A meteorite hitting Earth at many kilometres per second puts ‘ground zero’ target rocks under immense pressure. A shock wave faster than the speed of sound can result – and new materials created.
Space mining has the potential to provide a greater supply of resources either for being exploited locally for construction or being sent back to earth.
Fragments of the asteroid 2018 LA scattered over a wide area in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Alexander Proyer
Alexander Proyer, Botswana International University of Science and Technology e Fulvio Franchi, Botswana International University of Science and Technology
Each meteorite is a piece of the puzzle to understanding our solar system.
Gosses Bluff impact crater in the Northern Territory.
NASA’s Earth Observatory
Ten new remote cameras will soon be scouring the British night skies for meteorites.
Melissa Little (right) and Minoru Takasato (centre) from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute won the 2016 UNSW Eureka Prize for Scientific Research for work on growing kidney tissue from stem cells.
MCRI
High in the mountains of Morocco, scientists have discovered something remarkable and rare: a spot that was struck by two meteorites, possibly millions of years apart.
The early Earth may have been shaped by asteroid bombardment.
Shutterstock