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LPI Scientists Honored with Asteroid Naming by the IAU
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has recognized the scientific achievements of Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientists Dr. Imene Kerraouch and Dr. Allison McGraw by naming asteroids (20452) Kerraouch and (20092) Allisonmcgraw in their honor.
I found a new meteor shower — and it comes from an asteroid getting baked to bits by the sun
A NASA researcher in planetary sciences explains how he discovered a new meteor shower linked to a disintegrating asteroid.
Scientists Say We May Need to Nuke Asteroids—But Not How You Think
A new study favors buried explosions over Hollywood-style head-on impacts.
New Jersey Couple Aids Meteorite Discovery After it Crashes Through Their Roof
A New Jersey couple helped scientists uncover the makeup of an unusual asteroid after it fell into their bedroom.
Rubin Observatory alerts scientists to 800,000 new asteroids, exploding stars and other cosmic phenomena in just one night
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory sent scientists nearly 1 million astronomy alerts in one night, showing off changes in the sky. Eventually, the telescope is expected to reach 7 million alerts per night.
Scientists identify the rare meteorite that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual chemistry suggests that planet-cooling dust and debris, rather than sulfur inside the asteroid, may have delivered the deadliest blow.
A meteorite punched through a bedroom ceiling in Hillsborough, New Jersey, in 2024. Scientists have now found hundreds of different amino acids inside it — and the majority are not known to occur naturally on Earth.
The Hillsborough meteorite was collected within minutes of falling through a New Jersey home, giving researchers a rare look at briny asteroid chemistry and a diverse set of extraterrestrial amino acids.
Asteroid Detected Before Impact Explodes Over Australia In Rare Space Event
The asteroid was estimated at about 0.8 meters, and it posed zero threat to people or infrastructure on the ground.
NASA’s Next-Gen Near-Earth Asteroid Space Telescope Takes Shape
The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor — NASA’s first infrared space telescope purposely designed to discover potentially hazardous asteroids and comets — is
Asteroid Reveals The 5 Key Genetic Ingredients For Life on Earth
Could they be widespread in the Solar System after all?
Asteroid Bennu’s Rugged Surface Baffled NASA, We Finally Know Why
In one of the biggest surprises of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, its target asteroid, Bennu, turned out to be a jagged, rugged world covered in large boulders, with few of the smooth patches of sandy or pebbly material scientists had expected based on observations with Earth-based instruments. Bennu's looks were quite deceiving, and until now, scientists struggled to figure out why.
Scientists Discover the 7 Stages a Meteoroid Goes Through Before Hitting Earth
An analysis of 75 meteorite falls identified seven distinct processes that occur as space rocks melt, break apart, and slow down before reaching the ground. A space rock entering Earth’s atmosphere does far more than simply “burn up.” By examining 75 meteorite falls recorded in videos and photographs, researchers identified seven distinct stages that shape
Scientists Trace Tiny Molten Globs of Meteorite to a 'Missing' Asteroid
Right under our noses.
‘Weird’ science: U of A grad helped get asteroid named after Al Yankovic
“Weird Al” Yankovic now has an asteroid named after him, thanks to the efforts of a planetary scientist with deep connections to the University of Arizona.
Asteroid Bennu may have formed much closer to the Sun than scientists thought
Returned asteroid grains link Bennu, Ryugu and CI meteorites to a mixed dust reservoir shaped by ice and the young Jupiter.
Creation Scientists’ Research Back in the News Again
Did dinosaurs really die out millions of years ago?
Scientists Say We Should Nuke Dangerous Asteroids—Just Not the Way You Think
It's sort of like Armageddon, but with less oil drills.
After Hobbes vs Rousseau: Politics must move beyond human nature
Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases among twenty-first-century intellectuals. Often misattributed to Fredric Jameson, it has been warmly embraced by such influential authors as Slavoj Žižek and the tragically departed Mark Fisher, and has fueled the notion that the major problem with the political Left is that it simply needs to become more speculative and creative. Naturally, this is never a bad idea in any human pursuit. But what if the political distinction between Left, Right, and Center itself results from a failure of imagination? SUGGESTED READING Hobbes vs Rousseau: are we inherently evil? By Robin Douglass This particular division has been with us only since the summer of 1789. During the simmering prelude to the French Revolution, it referred originally to the physical position in the National Assembly of radical figures on one side and loyal monarchists on the other. These positions are linked with two entirely different camps of modern political theory. On the Left we find a series of authors ranging from the moderate (Locke) to the supercharged (Rousseau) to the truly radical (Marx), all of them contending that exploitation of the many by the few justifies revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. On the Right they are countered by the likes of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Schmitt, a group of thinkers convinced that corrupt human nature can be tamed only by force. In the words of the Nazi supporter Schmitt: “One could test all theories of nature and state and political ideas according to their anthropology and classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose [humans] to be by nature evil or by nature good.” This is the division we continue to face today, even in the daily retail politics of Western democracies.___Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims.___The most refreshing feature of David Graeber and David Wengrow’s 2021 book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity was their awareness that the forced choice between Rousseau and Hobbes (as they put it) is no longer sufficient. Our species has regularly proven itself capable of both the noblest gestures and the most scathing cruelties, making it hard to define us as essentially either emancipatory or brutal in our aims. Far from being stationed “beyond good and evil,” we seem to be fully entangled with both. We are not naturally good or evil, Graeber and Wengrow contend, but naturally experimental and imaginative. They rest their case on the archaeological record, which seems to bear witness to numerous episodes of seasonally shifting governments and festivals, which vacillate in the same society (even in the same year) between the egalitarian and the dictatorial. Such praise of political experiment makes a good fit with the generally anarchist position defended by these authors. Yet it is also what I find most disappointing in their position. Although they are right that the forced choice between Hobbes and Rousseau falls short of what our new situation requires, the authors simply replace it with praise for the human being as a political tinkerer and performer. In other words, they give us just another theory of human nature, one that would not have been out of place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. What other options might we have?___The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature… We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them___One fresh approach would be to treat politics within a broader framework than human nature, given that the polis does not exist in a vacuum filled exclusively with people. When Bruno Latour went to observe the baboons of Kenya with the San Diego anthropologist Shirley Strum, they jointly concluded that these primates were more socially interdependent than our own species. Each baboon is so reliant on the dynamics of the group that they find themselves locked into constant surveillance of their potentially dangerous peers. The group structure turns out to be inherently volatile. Humans, by contrast, are able to stabilize their societies to a large degree through the mediation of inanimate objects. Although one’s position in society may seem to fluctuate over time, considerable stability is produced through such items as apartment keys, wedding rings, and identification cards, all of them serving to secure us a place distinct from that of our fellows. The Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris has written at length about the crucial role of documents in establishing social relations, making him a hero among notaries in his country. Proper names and license plates cement our position amidst other humans, as do symbolic achievements such as graduation from a top university or distinguished wartime service with its various medals and ribbons. None of this is found among baboons, despite their closeness to us on the evolutionary tree: after all, we did share a common ancestor just 25 to 30 million years ago. SUGGESTED VIEWING The goodness paradox With Richard Wrangham The time is ripe for a retheorization of politics on the basis of something other than human nature, whether understood in the manner of the Left or of the Right. We are not just alienated and limited by objects, but also empowered and unleashed by them. But initially, it is true, we face non-human things primarily in the form of constraints. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a human civilization underwater, deep underground, atop Mount Everest, or in outer space. Human dependence on the non-social background takes on subtler form in discussions of political geography, especially unloved on the more idealistic Left. Consider the luckless position of Poland during World War II, sandwiched between Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. By contrast, note the good fortune of the United States in not having a military peer positioned on any land border. Anglo-American geopolitics, since the writings of the American naval commander Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, has been wedded to the notion that one or more liberal offshore naval powers should prevent any authoritarian “heartland” regime from gaining effective control of Eurasia. That remains the case whether the opponent is the impatient Napoleon, the swashbuckling German Kaiser, the villainous Hitler, the murderous Stalin, or the industrial juggernaut Chinese. In their current Foreign Affairs article “Heartland vs. Rimland,” Michael Beckley and Hal Brands analyze the current and coming state of the world on the basis of these same rather durable principles. In recent years a similar outlook has been embraced, in inverted form, by the Putin-loving Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an icon of the Rightist intellectual underworld. For Dugin, the Anglo-Saxons are an evil force bent on destroying the spiritually superior people of the land: much like Athens in its failed war with Sparta, or Carthage in its eventual collapse against Rome. But the shared notion on both sides is that any strategy that fails to take geography into account is likely to end up as a defeated form of excessive optimism.___When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole.___More striking for us today than geography is the non-human object called climate, which threatens rimland and heartland equally. Even if we contend that humans are one hundred percent responsible for triggering the climate crisis, it remains non-human in the sense of being an independent force beyond our effective control. In a major work published just before his death in 2002, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted the tendency of evolutionary theorists to focus too closely on the fate of individuals in view of their successful or failed adaptation to circumstances. With climate change, however, we confront a force that goes well beyond the scope of any individual life. Whereas Richard Dawkins extended evolutionary questions downward from individuals to the sub-individual gene, Gould pushed it upward, speaking of entire species or clades as impacted by environmental change. The asteroid that struck the Yucatán 66 million years ago is only the most famous example of this sort. In the wake of that catastrophe, large animals needing abundant supplies of food were at a fatal disadvantage by contrast with the smaller birds and mammals of the planet. When dealing with environmental degradation, then, we are doing business with forces that promise dire effects on our species as a whole. The effect is to shift our attention away from individual beings towards the survival of the group.In the United States in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked considerable backlash among those who asserted a nearly absolute degree of individual freedom. In California I encountered those who demanded that their businesses be allowed to reopen, that it was enough to cover their mouths but not their noses, or that they should have the right to enter any public area despite refusing vaccination. Yet public health is probably the clearest argument against libertarianism, which often merely asserts the autonomy of individuals against any claims of the commons. In normal times the individual is worth defending; under conditions that threaten the survival of part or all of our species, compulsion may be our only resort, as with perfectly reasonable blackouts and rations in wartime. To rebuild human society under the constraints of climate change will be one of the great challenges of the century to come, as will our improvised grappling with artificial intelligence. Such phenomena pose existential risks for humanity, and leave far less room for tolerance of individual brattiness. Cases are mounting of devastating wildfires caused by arson. Recently it was reported that there is even a website where one can bet on the location of coming wildfires, raising the specter of deliberate blazes set to collect on wagers. The death penalty has steadily lost support in a world where many stress the infinite value of human life. But if we focus instead on entire ecosystems, those who purposely burn the forests may begin to look worse than serial murderers.___The politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere.___So far I have spoken of force, authority, and punishment: measures sure to have greater appeal to those who identify with what we know as the Right. But other implications of the post-anthropocentric world are likely to have different backers. If non-human objects are seen as structuring political space, it stands to reason that they can no longer be introduced solely by the pace of technical breakthrough. Fields ranging from cybernetics to energy will demand increased politicization once they are reconceived not just as products of individual human investment, but as renovations of collective political geography. This need not involve world government, with its inherent risk of tyranny, but may involve quasi-governmental enforcers of prestige along the lines of a less corrupt FIFA or International Olympic Committee, punishing deviant states not with violence but with less tangible incentives.Politics will never lose its historic links with conflict and faction. But rather than factions aligned by differing theories of human nature, the politics of the future may be splintered by disagreement over such topics as how to manage our environing background and how to permit or restrict the entry of new objects into the political sphere. This will prove just as incommensurable with the modern Left/Right spectrum as a globe is with a two-dimensional map.
An asteroid sample contains all the key components for life on Earth
DNA from a distance
A massive asteroid hit the North Sea and triggered a 330-foot tsunami
A long-running debate about the Silverpit Crater beneath the North Sea has finally been resolved. Scientists now confirm it formed when a roughly 160-meter asteroid struck the seabed about 43–46 million years ago. New seismic imaging and rare shocked minerals in rock samples provided the crucial proof. The impact would have sent a massive plume skyward and unleashed a tsunami over 100 meters (330 feet) high.
Meteor impacts may have sparked life on Earth, scientists say
Asteroid impacts may have helped kick-start life on Earth by creating hot, chemical-rich environments ideal for early biology. These impact-generated hydrothermal systems could have lasted thousands of years—long enough for life’s building blocks to form. Scientists now think these environments may have been common on early Earth, making them a strong candidate for where life began. The idea could also guide the search for life on other worlds.
Our Survival Might One Day Rely on Nuking a 'City Killer' Asteroid. Scientists Just Tested Whether It'll Work
Things got weird.
NASA successfully kicks asteroid off course in Earth defence test
NASA knocked an asteroid off course in 2022 in a pioneering test of humanity's ability to defend Earth. Its spacecraft's impact pushed the space rock into a slightly different orbit around the Sun, according…
A fossil feather from the age of dinosaurs may explain why only some birds survived
An extremely well preserved fossil feather could reveal why some birds survived the dinosaur-killing asteroid, and others did not.
A Giant Asteroid Spins Once Every 4 Minutes. Scientists Aren't Sure How It Holds Together
It's whirling far faster than something its size has any right to.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft uses Mars as a giant slingshot toward a mysterious metal world
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft just used Mars as a giant gravitational slingshot to continue its journey toward a strange metal rich asteroid. The close flyby boosted the spacecraft’s speed by about 1,000 mph while also producing rare crescent images of Mars glowing through its dusty atmosphere.
Scientists explain catastrophic Yellowstone eruption scenario
“Imagine the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. There’s not really much you can do to prepare for that,” Iacovino said.
A massive asteroid slammed into the North Sea and triggered a 330-foot tsunami
Scientists have finally confirmed the origin of the mysterious Silverpit Crater beneath the North Sea. New evidence shows that an asteroid about 160 meters wide struck the seabed roughly 43 to 46 million years ago. The impact triggered a tsunami more than 100 meters high and left behind a crater that geologists debated for years.
Evidence of Ancient Life Found Buried Under an Asteroid Crater
We're all made of star-stuff.
Early Earth Was a Molten, Asteroid-Blasted Hellscape. Scientists Now Know When That Changed
A new study narrows the timeline for the emergence of life on Earth.
DNA building blocks on asteroid Ryugu, bacteria that eat plastic waste, and more science news
Catch up on some of the most interesting science stories from this week.
Tiny Grains From Asteroid Bennu Reveal How Jupiter Shaped the Early Solar System
The asteroid’s dust may preserve a record of how planets assembled 4.5 billion years ago.
Bruce Willis, We May Have A Job For You: Scientists Simulate Nuking An Asteroid, And The Results Are Pretty Encouraging
If an asteroid were heading in our direction, a nuclear blast may not be such a bad idea after all.
'Shared cosmic experience': 'Potentially hazardous' asteroid Apophis could be visible to 90% of Earth's population during ultraclose 2029 flyby, new maps reveal
Researchers predict that up to 7.6 billion people will be able to see the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis fly past Earth on April 13, 2029. The skyscraper-size space rock will come closer than some satellites, making it clearly visible to the naked eye.
NASA’s DART spacecraft changed an asteroid’s orbit around the sun
A 2022 NASA mission changed the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos around its companion. New data shows their joint orbit around the sun also changed.
OSIRIS-REx Full Mission Gallery
OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. It returned to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, to drop off a capsule with material from asteroid Bennu. After dropping off the sample capsule through Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft was renamed OSIRIS-APEX and sent on a new mission to explore asteroid Apophis in 2029. This is a sampling of images and videos from the entire mission.
Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself.
At first, scientists thought Earth’s water came from comets. Then, asteroids. Now, they wonder if Earth’s water is homegrown.
A private space company has a radical new plan to bag an asteroid
Company has previously tested its technology on the International Space Station.
Science Through Shadows: How Astronomical Alignments Reveal the Universe
When one celestial object passes in front of another, it can cast a shadow that travels across space – and sometimes across Earth. These moments of alignment, known as eclipses, occultations, and transits, allow scientists to study distant objects in remarkable ways. By observing how light changes when an object briefly blocks another, astronomers can measure sizes and shapes, detect atmospheres, and refine the orbits of asteroids and planets.
Scientists told them, 'No, it's too dangerous,' but they did it anyway: Inside Japan's super-close asteroid flyby
A last-minute proposal saw Hayabusa2 whizz within just 800 meters of a near-Earth asteroid.
The Dinosaur-killing Asteroid May Have Fueled Life Underground for 8 Million Years
Scientists found evidence that Chicxulub remained hydrothermally active four times longer than earlier estimates.
This massive crater could expose the heart of a lost planet
A mysterious metal-rich asteroid called Psyche has been baffling scientists for over two centuries, and its true origin remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in planetary science. Is it the exposed core of a failed planet, or a chaotic mix of rock and metal forged through countless violent collisions? To find out, researchers simulated how a massive crater near Psyche’s north pole formed, revealing that the asteroid’s internal “porosity” — how much empty space it contains — may hold the key to its secrets.
Scientists Discovered Orbs of Glass from an Ancient Asteroid Impact. The Crater Is Nowhere to Be Found.
The discovery of a new tektite-strewn field in northeastern Brazil points to a large meteorite impact—but geologists have yet to find the crater.
13-year-old Londoner wins top prize at national science fair for his work in asteroid detection
Thirteen-year-old Siddharth Patel, a Grade 7 student at London's Clara Brenton Public School, won the Platinum Prize in Discovery in the junior category for his project, "Automating Asteroid Detection Criteria to Strengthen Citizen Science for Planetary Defense."
'I was not looking for this': Scientist accidentally finds shortcut to Mars that could slash travel time in half
A new study suggests early asteroid trajectory data could help design faster Mars missions, potentially cutting round-trip travel time to under a year.
These terrifying (and wacky) birds ruled Earth after the dinosaurs
We tend to think that mammals took over after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but for millions of years, fearsome birds ruled Earth
Massive asteroid impact 6.3 million years ago left giant glass field in Brazil
For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered a vast field of tektites in Brazil — mysterious glassy fragments forged when a powerful extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth about 6.3 million years ago. Named “geraisites” after Minas Gerais, where they were first found, these dark, aerodynamic droplets of natural glass stretch across more than 900 kilometers and may mark one of South America’s most significant ancient impact events.
Urgent alert: a mysterious asteroid forces surprise action from astronomers - Futura-Sciences
The Asteroid with (Almost) No Bite The talk of the space community lately is 2024 YR4, a near-Earth asteroid discovered late last December. As it turns out, its orbit crosses that of our home planet—yes, a classic ‘potentially hazardous asteroid.’ But before you start updating your end-of-the-world playlist, here’s the...
A tiny universe in a bottle reveals clues to the origins of life
Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes. The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and produces infrared signals similar to real material found in space. By studying these laboratory samples, scientists can explore how organic chemistry unfolds around stars and how comets, asteroids and meteorites may have carried those ingredients to Earth.
Chinese rocket scientists find ‘most effective’ way to nuke a doomsday asteroid
China’s two-pronged method could blast apart an Earth-threatening space rock using a 3-megaton explosion equivalent to 200 Hiroshima bombs.
The Apophis encounter in 2029: A rare opportunity for planetary science and defense
The near-Earth asteroid Apophis will make an extremely close flyby of Earth on April 13, 2029, at a distance of approximately 38,000 km—an event that occurs on average only once every 7,500 years, offering an unprecedented opportunity for planetary science and planetary defense. However, significant uncertainties remain regarding the physical parameters of Apophis, such as its shape, spin state, internal structure, and material composition, and predictions of tidal effects—including potential orbital changes, spin acceleration, surface material displacement, and dust ejection during the flyby—are highly dependent on model assumptions. Although multiple nations have planned exploration missions, how to coordinate global observational resources within the limited time window, optimize rapid-response mission architectures, and translate scientific understanding into effective planetary defense strategies remain critical challenges to be addressed.
NASA’s Lucy Reveals Wobbling, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid
Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a
Newly discovered, blue-whale-size asteroid will fly super close to Earth Monday — and you can watch it live
Newly spotted asteroid 2026 JH2, which could be up to 115 feet wide, will fly past Earth closer than some satellites on Monday (May 18). The close approach will be visible to stargazers and can be viewed via livestream.
This week in science: Loud birds, eating with company, and asteroid samples
NPR's Short Wave podcast talks about really loud birds, the benefits of eating with company and what asteroid samples could tell us about the early Earth.
Fossil teeth smaller than a nail may rewrite human origin stories - Futura-Sciences
A shrew sized primate ancestor Purgatorius first appears in the fossil record around 65.9 million years ago. This timeline places the animal just after the Cretaceous-Paleogene asteroid impact that eliminated non-avian dinosaurs. The creature was a small, tree-dwelling mammal about the size of a modern shrew. Scientists classify it as...
Asteroid named after ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
‘I just hope this isn’t the asteroid that winds up destroying the Earth.’
He wants kids to love science and to see people who look like them who love it, too
Maynard Okereke, the “Hip Hop MD,” will be at San Diego’s Central Library on April 2 to share his book, “Zombie Spiders and Asteroid Blasters: 16 Incredible Ways that Scientists are Changing the World”
Dinosaurs died out within hours, new study suggests
The Chicxulub asteroid impact may have set our whole planet on fire.
Scientists have found 40,000 asteroids that could hit Earth. But it's just the tip of the iceberg | BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Scientists have found 40,000 near-Earth asteroids, providing greater insight into the potential threat to Earth from space.
Ancient asteroid craters may have sparked Earth’s oxygen-producing life
A hidden crater in South Korea may hold clues to one of the biggest turning points in Earth’s history: the rise of oxygen. Scientists discovered fossil-like stromatolites — layered structures built by ancient microbes — inside the Hapcheon impact crater, suggesting that asteroid strikes may have created warm, mineral-rich lakes where early oxygen-producing life could flourish.
NASA’s Asteroid-Smashing DART Mission Sped Up Space Rock’s Orbit Around the Sun
New data about the DART spacecraft’s effects adds evidence that Earth could be defended from future deadly asteroids by diverting their orbits.
Legoland opens the new Lego Galaxy and its most thrilling coaster yet
Galacticoaster is a race to save a Lego-infused galaxy from an “asteroid of probable destruction.” And at 40 mph, it's the park’s fastest ride.
How NASA shifted an asteroid’s orbit
The best possible version of a rock and a hard place
Meteorite that smashed through a New Jersey roof reveals clues to life’s origins
A rare meteorite that crashed through a New Jersey roof contains evidence of ancient salty fluids, organic compounds, and amino acids from a primitive asteroid. Its pristine chemistry could offer new clues about how space rocks helped supply early Earth with some of the ingredients needed for life.
Our Survival Might One Day Rely on Nuking a 'City Killer' Asteroid. Scientists Just Tested Whether It'll Work
Things got weird.
Asteroid as large as 5 cruise ships will soar past Earth this weekend
Skygazers can spot 1997 NC1 with strong binoculars.
Teeth smaller than a fingertip reveal the first primate ancestor
Tiny, tooth-sized fossils have just reshaped the story of our deepest ancestry. Paleontologists have discovered the southernmost remains ever found of Purgatorius—the earliest-known relative of all primates, including humans—in Colorado’s Denver Basin. Previously thought to be confined to Montana and parts of Canada, this shrew-sized, tree-dwelling mammal now appears to have spread southward soon after the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.
For much of the past century, scientists believed dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid struck 66 million years ago — but a 2025 study published in Science found fossils in New Mexico showing they were flourishing in diverse, thriving ecosystems right up until the moment of impact
For much of the past century, many scientists believed the dinosaurs were already in decline when the asteroid struck 66 million years ago, a group past its prime that a cosmic accident merely finished off. A 2025 study published in the journal Science, built on fossils from New Mexico, argues almost the opposite. Right up […]
SpaceX IPO filing reveals Elon Musk's space economy vision
SpaceX IPO filing reveals Elon Musk's vision for Mars factories, asteroid mining, and space tourism.
Microscopic contaminants found on Ryugu asteroid samples - Futura-Sciences
The high stakes of asteroid analysis Finding genuine traces of life or organic compounds on an asteroid would transform our understanding of how life began in the universe. But before claiming a discovery of that scale, researchers must be entirely certain they are not looking at Earthly hitchhikers. Mistaking a...
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aces Mars flyby capturing stunning timelapse video
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with a metal-rich asteroid. The spacecraft tested its cameras, magnetometer, and particle-detecting instruments, capturing unusual views of Mars and measuring its magnetic environment. It also detected neutrons from the planet and spotted the tiny moons Phobos and Deimos.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs may have triggered a global fungal bloom
The asteroid that smacked into our planet about 66 million years ago at the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary may have been bad news for dinosaurs, but it was good news for fungi. According to new ...
Scientists squished microbes into a steel 'sandwich' — and made a profound discovery about life in space
"Extremophile" bacteria could survive asteroid impacts that are strong enough to launch them into space, suggesting that life could travel between planetary bodies.
The Dinosaurs May Have Had Only Hours Before Extinction After the Asteroid Struck and Turned the Planet into a Global Furnace
New research suggests fine dust trapped heat from falling debris, producing a deadly pulse that could have ignited forests around the world.
A massive asteroid slammed into the North Sea and unleashed a 330-foot tsunami
A decades-long mystery beneath the North Sea has finally been solved. Scientists have confirmed that the Silverpit Crater, buried 700 meters below the seabed, was created when a 160-meter-wide asteroid struck Earth roughly 43 to 46 million years ago. The violent collision blasted a towering curtain of rock and water 1.5 kilometers into the air and triggered a tsunami more than 100 meters high.
Scientists admit: the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs wasn’t what we thought - Futura-Sciences
The Scene of the Crime: Chicxulub and the Prehistoric Apocalypse About 66 million years ago, an asteroid roughly 6 miles wide (10 kilometers!) crashed into what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The resulting impact gouged out a crater nearly 112 miles across (around 180 kilometers)—buried today under layers...
Should Scientists Have Research "Reserves" on the Moon?
The worlds of the Solar System offer up exciting and (so far) mostly pristine places for planetary scientists to study. As space missions continue to travel to Mars, Europa, asteroids, and other worlds, questions keep coming up about keeping them safe for continued exploration and observations.
Scientists Pinpoint a Possible “Sweet Spot” for Life’s Origins 4.33 Billion Years Ago
By simulating a billion years of Earth’s history, researchers have identified a possible window for life’s earliest chemistry around 4.33 billion years ago. During its first few hundred million years, Earth was a hostile target. Asteroids, comets, and leftover planetesimals, smaller bodies remaining from planet formation, relentlessly battered the planet, generating intense heat that could
Pope to Vatican Observatory: Church Embraces Science To Find God in Creation
As he met with the Vatican Observatory Foundation, Pope Leo XIV upheld the Catholic Church's desire to seek God in His Creation through rigorous, honest science.
Pedal to the Metal: NASA’s Psyche Heads Toward Asteroid Belt
With a successful Mars gravity assist in its rearview mirror, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has fired up its thrusters and is accelerating to the metal-rich
Scientists Release Details About Moon's New Massive Crater
It's easy to think of the Moon as the static constant companion in the night sky. Its face hasn’t visibly changed in millennia, and always faces us with the same side. But looks can be deceiving, as our closest companion is constantly bombarded by asteroids and comets that make small craters across the lunar landscape. While they might not be large enough for us to see with our naked eye, professional Moon watchers can pick up on them. And a recent paper published in Science Advances, describes the largest ever found in modern times.
Scientists discover a 3.5-billion-year-old asteroid impact on the moon
The first few billion years of Earth's history saw the rise of life, the atmosphere and the oceans. Still, that time is shrouded in mystery: Not many rocks remain that preserve a record of those early ...
Near-Earth asteroid not an asteroid at all
1998 SH2's story is a 30-year-long cosmic identity crisis.
Mars shines in ethereal photo from Psyche space probe
NASA's asteroid explorer is on a 2-billion-mile mission.
Remembering Michael Gaffey
World-renowned asteroid researcher left lasting mark on UND, planetary science and generations of students
China’s glueball ‘triumph’; SpaceX rocket debris on video: 7 science highlights
From China’s plan against desertification to nuking a ‘doomsday asteroid’, here are some highlights from SCMP’s recent science reporting.
Scientists propose nuking solution to Doomsday asteroid — as thousands of city-killers swarm Earth
Scientists have devised an unorthodox solution to stop a potential Doomsday asteroid from destroying Earth — by nuking the space-rock with a force equivalent to multiple Hiroshima bombs.
In April 2029, a Massive Asteroid Will Just Miss Earth. Scientists Are Worried There Could Still Be Major Consequences
Apophis is going to get close.
An asteroid shattered near Jupiter’s gravitational gateway 800 million years ago; scientists say the debris may have bombarded Earth for 150 million years
A massive asteroid that broke apart around 800 million years ago may have sent a huge number of rocky fragments towards Earth, the Moon and Mars, according to a new study led by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute.
Blowing Up an Asteroid With a Nuke: Scientists Shocked by Final Result - Futura-Sciences
Asteroids: A Perennial Threat Over Billions of Years The risks asteroids pose to Earth never truly go out of style—they regularly return to the spotlight. And for good reason: these threats are all too real. Unlike any species before us in the 4+ billion-year saga of Earth’s biosphere, we are...
Spacecraft's impact changed asteroid's orbit around the sun in a save-the-Earth test, study finds
A new study has found that an asteroid NASA used for target practice a few years ago was nudged into a slightly different route around the sun
Before dinosaurs: scientists uncover the shocking cosmic event that changed Earth - Futura-Sciences
Asteroids, Meteorites, and Humanity’s Long Fascination For thousands of years, people have witnessed meteorites falling from the sky. Fascinating and fearsome, such events sparked myths and legends long before science explained their origin. Yet, it wasn’t until January 1, 1801, when Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres—a dwarf planet a little under...
Asteroids May Have Laid the Groundwork for Life on Earth
Asteroids would’ve supplied the raw materials, heat, and geologic plumbing to circulate prebiotic matter while also creating freshwater lakes
Could Life on Earth Have Descended From Microbes That Traveled From Mars Long Ago?
Scientists demonstrated that an Earthly extremophile might withstand being ejected from the Red Planet on debris spewed into space due to an asteroid strike
Earth’s oldest asteroid impact struck 3 billion years ago
While scientists are revising the timeline at Australia's North Pole Dome, it's still our oldest known crater.
GCSU hosts Summer Science Program as top high schoolers research asteroids
This June, Georgia College & State University (GCSU) is hosting the prestigious Summer Science Program (SSP), where top high school researchers will track aster
Nickel Fingerprints Reveal What the Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Was Made Of
The culprit may have been an unusually dry relic from the outer solar system.
NASA updates odds that 'city killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit the moon
The "city killer" asteroid 2024 YR4 won't hit Earth or the moon when it whizzes by in 2032, the latest James Webb Space Telescope observations confirm.
‘The moon is safe’: asteroid is not on collision course, scientists confirm
ESA’s Planetary Defence team allay fears 100-metre-wide object could hit Earth’s moon and disrupt satellites
Can a nuclear bomb really save Earth? Scientists are testing the unthinkable - Futura-Sciences
A Nuclear Bomb in Space: Not Science Fiction Anymore Chinese researchers have just published a remarkable study outlining a radical plan to shield Earth from a giant asteroid: burying a nuclear bomb right into the cosmic boulder. We’re not talking movie magic here—it’s physics, simulations, and cold, hard calculations. The...