In September 2023, a NASA mission successfully brought samples of an asteroid down to Earth in a sealed capsule. Analysis of these samples may reveal information about the origins of the universe.
Upcoming NASA missions will help scientists understand the composition of asteroids – which could inform companies one day hoping to commercially mine asteroids.
Scientists have been searching Earth’s surface for superheavy elements too difficult to make in the lab, but now, many are looking to the skies instead.
Some space rocks you can get for free – if you know how to identify them. Rarer materials cost more, and the asteroid sample NASA just brought back has a high price tag.
Controlled experiments are impossible in astronomy, as are direct measurements of physical properties of objects outside our solar system. So how do astronomers know so much about them?
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has delivered pieces of asteroid Bennu, which scientists hope will offer a window into the early era of the Solar System billions of years ago.
Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, a sea-dwelling lizard from the age of the dinosaurs, with strange, ridged teeth unlike those of any known reptile.
A new study of the meteorite Erg Chech 002 makes it one of the most precisely dated space objects and changes our understanding of how elements were spread around the cloud of dust that formed the Sun and planets.