Asteroids, Comets and Meteors News

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

No Gamma Rays Seen Coming from Nearby Supernova

Apr. 16, 2024 — A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But surprisingly, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected ...

Study Shedding New Light on Earth's Global Carbon Cycle Could Help Assess Liveability of Other Planets

Apr. 10, 2024 — Research has uncovered important new insights into the evolution of oxygen, carbon, and other vital elements over the entire history of Earth -- and it could help assess which other planets can ...

Climate Change Threatens Antarctic Meteorites

Apr. 8, 2024 — Antarctica harbors a large concentration of meteorites imbuing the icy continent with an unparalleled wealth of information on our solar system. However, these precious meteorites are rapidly disappearing from the ice sheet surface due to global ...

Unlocking Supernova Stardust Secrets

Mar. 28, 2024 — New research has discovered a rare dust particle trapped in an ancient extra-terrestrial meteorite that was formed by a star other than our ...

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Distant 'Space Snowman' Unlocks Mystery of How Some Dormant Deep Space Objects Become 'Ice Bombs'

Mar. 27, 2024 — Researchers found that the double-lobed object, which is officially named Kuiper Belt Object 486958 Arrokoth and resembles a snowman, may have ...

Tiniest 'Starquake' Ever Detected

Mar. 26, 2024 — An orange dwarf star has yielded the tiniest 'starquakes' ever recorded, measured by an international team of ...

Scientists on the Hunt for Evidence of Quantum Gravity's Existence at the South Pole

Mar. 26, 2024 — An Antarctic large-scale experiment is striving to find out if gravity also exists at the quantum level. An extraordinary particle able to travel ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures the End of Planet Formation

Mar. 22, 2024 — How much time do planets have to form from a swirling disk of gas and dust around a star? A new study gives scientists a better idea of how our own solar system came to ...

Signs of Life Would Be Detectable in Single Ice Grain Emitted from Extraterrestrial Moons

Mar. 22, 2024 — Could life be found in frozen sea spray from moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter? New research finds that life can be detected in a single ice grain ...

Secrets of the Van Allen Belt Revealed in New Study

Mar. 21, 2024 — A challenge to space scientists to better understand our hazardous near-Earth space environment has been set in a new ...

Icy Impacts: Planetary Scientists Use Physics and Images of Impact Craters to Gauge the Thickness of Ice on Europa

Mar. 20, 2024 — New study reveals that Europa's ice shell is at least 20 kilometers ...

Do Astronauts Experience 'Space Headaches'?

Mar. 13, 2024 — Space travel and zero gravity can take a toll on the body. A new study has found that astronauts with no prior history of headaches may experience migraine and tension-type headaches during long-haul ...

Ancient Ice May Still Exist in Distant Space Objects, Researchers Find

Mar. 14, 2024 — A new paper presents findings about the Kuiper Belt Object 486958 Arrokoth, shedding new light on the preservation of volatile substances like carbon monoxide in such distant celestial bodies. The ...

Surprising Insights About Debris Flows on Mars

Mar. 14, 2024 — The period that liquid water was present on the surface of Mars may have been shorter than previously thought. Channel landforms called gullies, previously thought to be formed exclusively by liquid ...

Cheers! NASA's Webb Finds Ethanol, Other Icy Ingredients for Worlds

Mar. 13, 2024 — What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS ...

Scientists Propose New Theory That Explains Sand Ripples on Mars and on Earth

Mar. 12, 2024 — Sand ripples are symmetrical. Yet wind -- which causes them -- is very much not. Furthermore, sand ripples can be found on Mars and on Earth. They would be even more fascinating if the same effect ...

CSI in Space: Analyzing Bloodstain Patterns in Microgravity

Mar. 8, 2024 — As more people seek to go where no man has gone before, researchers are exploring how forensic science can be adapted to extraterrestrial environments. A new study highlights the behavior of blood in ...

Interstellar Signal Linked to Aliens Was Actually Just a Truck

Mar. 7, 2024 — Sound waves thought to be from a 2014 meteor fireball north of Papua New Guinea were almost certainly vibrations from a truck rumbling along a nearby road, new research shows. The findings raise ...

Space Tourism? Cosmic Radiation Exposure

Mar. 5, 2024 — Space weather experts are urging regulators and space tourism innovators to work together to protect their passengers and crews from the risks of space weather radiation ...

JWST Captures the End of Planet Formation

Mar. 4, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars. Scientists have ...

Study Determines the Original Orientations of Rocks Drilled on Mars

Mar. 4, 2024 — Geologists determined the original orientation of many of the Mars bedrock samples collected by the Perseverance rover. The findings can give scientists clues to the conditions in which the rocks ...

Ice Shell Thickness Reveals Water Temperature on Ocean Worlds

Feb. 29, 2024 — Astrobiologists have devised a novel way to determine ocean temperatures of distant worlds based on the thickness of their ice shells, effectively conducting oceanography from ...

Could Fiber Optic Cable Help Scientists Probe the Deep Layers of the Moon?

Feb. 29, 2024 — An increasing number of seismologists are using fiber optic cables to detect seismic waves on Earth -- but how would this technology fare on the Moon, and what would it tell us about the deep layers ...

Metal Scar Found on Cannibal Star

Feb. 26, 2024 — When a star like our Sun reaches the end of its life, it can ingest the surrounding planets and asteroids that were born with it. Now, researchers have found a unique signature of this process for ...

Webb Finds Evidence for Neutron Star at Heart of Young Supernova Remnant

Feb. 22, 2024 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, was a ...

Brightest and Fastest-Growing: Astronomers Identify Record-Breaking Quasar

Feb. 22, 2024 — Astronomers have characterized a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies ...

Three Years Later, Search for Life on Mars Continues

Feb. 22, 2024 — Scientists suspect Mars once had long-lived rivers, lakes and streams. Today, water on Mars is found in ice at the poles and trapped below the Martian surface. Researchers now reveal that Mars also ...

Evidence of Geothermal Activity Within Icy Dwarf Planets

Feb. 15, 2024 — A team found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the tell-tale signs ...

Diverse Ancient Volcanoes on Mars Discovered by Planetary Scientist May Hold Clues to Pre-Plate Tectonic Activity on Earth

Feb. 15, 2024 — A geologist has revealed intriguing insights into the volcanic activity on Mars. He proposes that Mars has significantly more diverse volcanism than previously realized, driven by an early form of ...

Newly Discovered Carbon Monoxide-Runaway Gap Can Help Identify Habitable Exoplanets

Feb. 6, 2024 — A carbon monoxide (CO)-runaway gap identified in the atmospheres of Earth-like planets can help expand the search for habitable planets. This gap, identified through atmospheric modeling, is an ...

Understanding the Moon's History With Chang'e-5 Sample

Feb. 6, 2024 — China's Chang'e-5, the first lunar sample return mission since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976, delivered 1.73 kilograms of regolith from the Oceanus Procellarum, a plane named for ...

Gas on the Run -- ALMA Spots the Shadow of a Molecular Outflow from a Quasar When the Universe Was Less Than One Billion Years Old

Feb. 1, 2024 — Theoretical predictions have been confirmed with the discovery of an outflow of molecular gas from a quasar when the Universe was less than a billion years ...

Researchers Spying for Signs of Life Among Exoplanet Atmospheres

Jan. 29, 2024 — The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research ...

Cosmic Building Blocks of Life Discovered Through the Electron Microscope

Jan. 29, 2024 — Meteorites are fragments of asteroids which find their way to Earth as shooting stars and provide information on the origins of our solar system. A team of researchers has examined the so-called ...