Space Station Threshold

In an effort to understand how organic chemicals might survive after a period in the vacuum of space and then violent re-entry through the atmosphere, scientists have uncovered some interesting results. Last year, the ESA/Russian Foton-M3 mission was launched to test the effects of microgravity on various biological samples. However, a sample of ...

Meteorites and asteroids from the inner solar system could be responsible for Earth's store of precious metals such as platinum and iridium, brought to our nascent planet during the period of Late Heavy Bombardment, about 4,000 million years ago. Dr. Gerhard Schmidt from the University of Mainz, Germany, has calculated that about 160 ...

Antarctica's distinctive, unforgiving environment is truly unique. But add to that setting the otherworldly task of looking for meteorites — bits and pieces from the far reaches of our solar system that are strewn about Antarctica's icy surface,– and Earth's southern-most continent can provide a truly unparalleled ...

Astronomers studying ways to deal with incoming near-Earth asteroids (NEA) that might be on a collision course with our planet want to know in detail what these space rocks are made of. The better they "know the enemy" the better they can come up with ways to destroy or change the course of NEAs. [...]

If you've ever held a real meteorite in your hand, you probably wanted to know, "Where has this rock been in space and where did it come from?" Until now, no one has been able to definitively establish where the majority of meteorites found on Earth came from because of the changes that occur [...]

Want to discover an impact crater, and even get it named after you? All you've got to do is spend a few (hundred) hours poring over images in Google Earth or Google Maps. That's exactly what Geologist Arthur Hickman did, turning up a previously unknown impact crater when he was searching for iron ore in [...]

On September 15th of last year, a meteorite impacted the Earth near the town of Carancas in Peru. The story made worldwide headlines when hundreds of people who flocked to see the crater reported getting ill. As it turned out, there were no mysterious space illnesses plaguing the population; the super-hot meteorite likely vaporized ...

How did life arise on Earth? How did we get from rocks and water to the abundance and variety that we see today? Perhaps the raw ingredients for life, amino acids, were delivered to Earth by a steady bombardment of meteorites. Researchers have turned up space rocks with concentrations of amino acids 10x higher than [...]

The common belief is that all meteors come from inside our solar system. Most meteors are thought to be pieces of comet dust or fragments of asteroids that enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up before they hit the ground, leaving a fiery trail we call “shooting stars.” But a recent observation might put [...]

Astronomers are slowly piecing together the earliest phases of our Solar System's history. At some point, tiny particles of dust clung together forming larger and larger boulders and eventually even mountain-sized chunks of rock. Researchers from UC Davis have pegged the date that this occurred to 4.568 billion years ago, give or take a few ...