Jay TateScientists have identified the world’s oldest asteroid crater in Australia, adding it may explain how the planet was lifted from an ice age.
The asteroid hit Yarrabubba in Western Australia about 2.2 billion years ago – making the crater about half the age of Earth, researchers say.
Their conclusion was reached by testing minerals found in rocks at the site.
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Jay TateThis has been a bit of a “to and fro” argument of late, but now a group of scientists has weighed in with what they claim is the definitive answer.
“It was the asteroid ‘wot dun it’!” Prof Paul Wilson told the BBC.
His team’s analysis of ocean sediments shows that huge volcanoes that erupted in India did not change the climate enough to drive the extinction.
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Jay TateThey found dust grains within the space rock – which fell to Earth in the 1960s – that are as much as 7.5 billion years old.
The oldest of the dust grains were formed in stars that roared to life long before our Solar System was born.
A team of researchers has described the result in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Jay TateBy Rebecca MorelleScience correspondent, BBC News
Astronomers are warning that their view of the Universe could be under threat.
From next week, a campaign to launch thousands of new satellites will begin in earnest, offering high-speed internet access from space.
But the first fleets of these spacecraft,
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Jay TateBillions of years ago, asteroid collisions resulted in the ejection of fragments hundreds of kilometers across and sharing similar orbits. The resulting groups are known as asteroid families.
Other asteroid groups formed as a result of rotational fission, which happens when a rapidly spinning body reaches critical rotation speed and splits into relatively small fragments only a few kilometers across.
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Jay TateHumongous space rocks fly past Earth on a regular basis, and have in the past collided with our planet, leading to unparalleled mass-extinctions. To make matters worse, some of them are known to fly at trajectories which allow them to sneak up on our planet before scientists can even spot them,
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Jay TateAfter a year scoping out asteroid Bennu’s boulder-scattered surface, the team leading NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission has officially selected a sample collection site.
The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex) mission team concluded a site designated “Nightingale” – located in a crater high in Bennu’s northern hemisphere –
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Jay TateThe University of Arizona is spearheading work that would begin efforts to construct a space-based infrared telescope that could provide the capabilities NASA needs to search for asteroids and comets that pose impact hazards to Earth, called near-Earth objects, or NEOs.
Professor Amy Mainzer of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona will provide technical leadership for the projected mission,
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Jay TateOn Friday, Oct. 11, the OSIRIS-REx team should have been preparing to point their spacecraft cameras precisely over the asteroid Bennu to capture high-resolution images of a region known as Osprey. It is one of four sites scientists are considering from which the spacecraft can safely collect a sample in late 2020.
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Jay TateIn January 2018, a falling meteorite created a bright fireball that arced over the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan, followed by loud sonic booms.
The visitor not only dropped a slew of meteorites over the snow-covered ground, it also provided information about its extra-terrestrial source.
Although tens of thousands of meteorites have been recovered by humans,
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