Researchers Find Five New Meteorites in Antarctica
A team of meteorite hunters from Belgium and the United States has found five new Antarctic meteorites, including one that weighs 7.6 kg. The 7.6-kg meteorite found in Antarctica. Image…
Scientists Find Various Organic Compounds in Martian Meteorite
An international team of researchers has detected abundant polyaromatic compounds, organic magnesium compounds, aliphatic branched carboxylic acids, aldehydes, and olefins in the Tissint meteorite, which landed near the city of…
Detecting Extraterrestrial Life on Enceladus Could Be Achieved without Landing: Study
Enceladus, the sixth-biggest moon of Saturn, is a top candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life in the Solar System. An artist’s impression of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft flying through plumes…
Researchers Find Two Extraterrestrial Minerals in El Ali Meteorite
The El Ali meteorite, a 15.2-ton iron meteorite found in 2020 near the tiny town of El Ali in Somalia, contains at least two new minerals: elaliite and elkinstantonite. This…
Mars Express Spots Two Large Craters at Martian South Pole
A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows an exciting landscape of layered deposits, frost, ice, and dark dunes in Ultimi…
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Records Sound of Martian Dust Devil
Dust devils — convective vortices loaded with dust — are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of NASA’s Perseverance rover. They are indicators…
NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Successfully Lands in Pacific Ocean
NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California at 12:40 p.m. ET on December 10, 2022. The splashdown is the final milestone of…
Planetary Scientists Find Evidence for Active Mantle Plume on Mars
Elysium Planitia, a flat-smooth plain just north of the Martian equator, is underlain by an 4,000-km-diameter active mantle plume, according to new research by scientists from the Lunar and Planetary…
Chicxulub-Like Asteroid Caused Megatsunami on Early Mars
The Chicxulub-like asteroid crash landed in shallow ocean waters in the Martian region of Chryse Planitia 3.4 billion years ago (Hesperian period) and left a crater about 110 km wide,…
Early Martian Ocean Was Over 300 Meters Deep, New Research Suggests
An analysis of chromium isotopes in Martian meteorites suggests that approximately 4.5 billion years ago, there was enough water for the entire planet to be covered in a 300-m-deep global…