Japanese astronomers observed the elusive “Phoenicid meteor shower” and have determined that it was spawned by the now vanished Comet Blanpain. They also found that Comet Blanpain was active, though only weakly, in the early 20th Century. This is the first time that researchers could determine the activity of a comet by observing its associated […]
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 […]
On February 26 at 1:06 p.m., someone in northern Alaska may have seen a torch of light in the cold daytime sky. On that afternoon, satellites detected a meteoric fireball headed toward Earth. An asteroid six feet in diameter penetrated the atmosphere at 13 miles per second, piercing the protective shell of gases at a […]