Jay TateSome of the world’s oldest cave paintings have revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy.
The artworks, at sites across Europe, are not simply depictions of wild animals, as was previously thought. Instead, the animal symbols represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes,
…
Jay TateArchaeologists at a site in what’s now Jordan have found evidence of a cosmic calamity
A superheated blast from the skies obliterated cities and farming settlements north of the Dead Sea around 3,700 years ago, preliminary findings suggest.
Radiocarbon dating and unearthed minerals that instantly crystallized at high temperatures indicate that a massive airburst caused by a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere instantaneously destroyed civilization in a 25-kilometer-wide circular plain called Middle Ghor,
…
Jay TateThe 31km-wide depression came to light when scientists examined radar images of the island’s bedrock.
Investigations suggest the feature was probably dug out by a 1.5km-wide iron asteroid sometime between about 12,000 and three million years ago.
But without drilling through nearly 1km of ice to sample the bed directly,
…
Jay TateDawn, a NASA spacecraft that launched 11 years ago and studied two of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, has ended its mission after running out of fuel, officials said Thursday.
Scientists have known for about a month that Dawn was essentially out of hydrazine, the fuel that kept the spacecraft’s antennae oriented toward Earth and helped turn its solar panels to the Sun to recharge.
…
Jay TateEngineers and scientists gathered around a screen in an operations room at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., eager to lay their eyes on the first data from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. It was January 2007, and the twin STEREO satellites – short for Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory –
…
Jay TateAbout 66 million years ago, a meteorite hit the Earth of the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now Mexico. This event triggered a mass extinction that eradicated approximately 75 percent of all species and ended the era of dinosaurs.
Like Prof. Dr. Ulrich Riller of the Institute of Geology of the University of Hamburg and co-workers report in “Nature”,
…
Jay TateJAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s) Hayabusa2 mission is on track to return samples from its target asteroid, 162173 Ryugu, a C-type near-Earth asteroid (NEA). The past month has seen the successful deployment of two rovers and a lander. The mission focus is now on the successful retrieval and return of a surface sample.
…
Jay TateFrom the BBC.
Some of the biggest names in science are pleading for a deal on Brexit to avoid damaging British and European research.
A letter to Theresa May and Jean-Claude-Juncker has been signed by 29 Nobel Laureates and six winners of the prestigious Fields medal.
…
Jay TateHayabusa-2, Japan’s asteroid-orbiting probe, has put another miniature lander on the surface of Ryugu.
The box-shaped lander, Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, was designed by a team of engineers from Germany and France.
Engineers at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, confirmed MASCOT’s safe landing on the asteroid’s surface.
…
Jay TateThe hypothetical, massive outer Solar System body Planet X is still proving elusive, but the hunt for it has yielded up a different find: a tiny dwarf planet, roughly 2.5 times Pluto’s distance at the time it was found.
It’s called 2015 TG387 and nicknamed “the Goblin”.
…
