It’s no easy task to find a meteorite that’s just been seen flashing across the sky. But it helps if you have an automatic network of “eyes” on the night sky.
The early solar system was once a turbulent place.
Flickr/Philippe Put
The early solar system was a busy place with plenty of meteorite impacts on the new planets and moons. But finding evidence of such impacts on Earth can be tricky.
Our solar system is far from empty. A rogue asteroid or comet may have been responsible for the largest impact site yet discovered in Warburton in central Australia.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
The largest meteorite impact site in the world may be right here in central Australia.
Aboriginal stories dating back many thousands of years talk of a fire from the sky in an area now home to the Henbury meteorite craters, in the Northern Territory.
Flickr/Boobook
We can learn much about meteor strikes in ancient Australia by examining the oral traditions of indigenous people.
A bright fireball over the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, ALMA, in Chile, marks the fiery death of a small grain of space debris, high in the atmosphere.
ESO/C. Malin
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Donna Burton, University of Southern Queensland e Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute
Meteors have been seen since people first looked at the night sky. They are comprised of small pieces of debris, typically no larger than a grain of dust or sand, which continually crash into the Earth’s…
A group of excited observers during a peak of the Geminids meteor shower.
Flickr/Tasayu Tasnaphun
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland; Donna Burton, University of Southern Queensland e Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute
Watching meteors in the night sky can be fun, although typically you only see a few flashes an hour. But there are certain times of the year when you can see many more – events known as meteor showers…
Along with pictures and samples from Mars’ surface, meteorites provide great insight into the planet’s geological history.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre
Our interest in our near-neighbour Mars – the hope of finding life there, or of possibly colonising it in the future – has driven several orbiting missions to the planet. These produced very detailed maps…
Search for glass beads to reveal the past.
rickmach
Meteorite impacts can be very destructive. One that fell in Mexico around 66m years ago created a 180km crater and caused the extinction of dinosaurs while spewing debris and molten rock into the air…
The trail of a meteor that caused some harm, but mostly helped humanity understand the meteorite strikes on Earth.
alexeya
The asteroid impact that burst over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on the morning of February 15 has provided a huge collection of new data that scientists have been analysing since. This week, three papers, two…