Around 65 million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. The impact and subsequent effects wiped out about 75 percent of all life on Earth, including most of the dinosaurs. Scientists studying the resulting Chicxulub crater are learning how large asteroid impacts deform rocks in a way that may produce habitat […]
Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, has captured public imagination and been shrouded in mystery for decades. But numerical simulations recently conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have shed some light on the enigmatic satellite. The dominant feature on the surface of Phobos (22-kilomters across) is Stickney crater (9-km across), a mega crater that spans […]
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) acquired images of the lunar surface before and after the largest recorded explosion occurred on the surface. On March 17, 2013, an object the size of a small boulder hit the surface in Mare Imbrium and exploded in a flash of light nearly 10 times as bright as anything ever […]