News articles tagged with 'asteroid'
Formaldehyde: Poison could have set the stage for the origins of life
— 6 Apr 2011 17:22 | ChemistryFormaldehyde, a poison and a common molecule throughout the universe, is likely the source of the solar system's organic carbon solids - abundant in both comets and asteroids. Scientists…
Frozen comet had a watery past, University of Arizona scientists find
— 6 Apr 2011 15:46 | AstronomyFor the first time, scientists have found convincing evidence for the presence of liquid water in a comet, shattering the current paradigm that comets never get warm enough to melt…
When is an asteroid not an asteroid?
— 30 Mar 2011 17:37 | AstronomyOn March 29, 1807, German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers spotted Vesta as a pinprick of light in the sky. Two hundred and four years later, as NASA's Dawn spacecraft prepares to…
Oxygen isotope analysis tells of the wandering life of a dust grain 4.5 billion years ago
— 4 Mar 2011 14:45 | AstronomyScientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation,…
Abundant ammonia aids life's origins
— 3 Mar 2011 12:26 | BiologyAn important discovery has been made with respect to the possible inventory of molecules available to the early Earth. Scientists led by Sandra Pizzarello, a research professor at Arizona…
Jupiter scar likely from rocky body
— 27 Jan 2011 18:50 | AstronomyA hurtling asteroid about the size of the Titanic caused the scar that appeared in Jupiter's atmosphere on July 19, 2009, according to two papers published recently in the journal Icarus…
More asteroids could have made life's ingredients
— 19 Jan 2011 17:59 | AstronomyA wider range of asteroids were capable of creating the kind of amino acids used by life on Earth, according to new NASA research…
New telescope is exploring solar system 'outback'
— 13 Jan 2011 17:06 | AstronomyIn the outer reaches of our solar system lies a mysterious region far more remote and difficult to explore than the Australian outback. It remains the only part of our solar system…
Meteorite just one piece of an unknown celestial body
— 16 Dec 2010 17:07 | AstronomyScientists from all over the world are taking a second, more expansive, look at the car-sized asteroid that exploded over Sudan's Nubian Desert in 2008. Initial research was focused…
Asteroid collision forensics
— 15 Oct 2010 12:05 | AstronomyIn the first half of February 2009, two asteroids collided in a region of space beyond the orbit of Mars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS)…