Near-Earth Object Impacts News

September 29, 2023

Top Headlines

Earth's Most Ancient Impact Craters Are Disappearing

Aug. 1, 2023 — Earth's oldest craters could give scientists critical information about the structure of the early Earth and the composition of bodies in the solar system as well as help to interpret crater records on other planets. But geologists can't find them, ...

Sun 'Umbrella' Tethered to Asteroid Might Help Mitigate Climate Change

July 31, 2023 — Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. An astronomer has proposed a novel approach -- a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a ...

Humans' Ancestors Survived the Asteroid Impact That Killed the Dinosaurs

June 27, 2023 — A Cretaceous origin for placental mammals, the group that includes humans, dogs and bats, has been revealed by in-depth analysis of the fossil record, showing they co-existed with dinosaurs for a short time before the dinosaurs went ...

Where Did Earth's Water Come From? Not Melted Meteorites, According to Scientists

Mar. 15, 2023 — A new study brings scientists one step closer to answering the question of where Earth's water came ...

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Gas Monitoring at Volcanic Fields Outside Naples, Italy, Exposes Multiple Sources of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Mar. 7, 2023 — The Phlegraean volcanic fields just west of Naples, Italy, are among the top eight emitters of volcanic carbon dioxide in the world. Since 2005, the ...

Hubble Captures Movie of DART Asteroid Impact Debris

Mar. 1, 2023 — In 2022 NASA embarked on a bold experiment to see if they could change an asteroid's velocity by smacking it with a ballistic probe -- kind of like hitting it with a hammer. This experiment was to ...

New NASA DART Data Prove Viability of Asteroid Deflection as Planetary Defense Strategy

Mar. 1, 2023 — Astronomers offer new insight into how deflection missions can protect the planet from future Earth-bound asteroids and ...

Meteorite Crater Discovered in French Winery

Feb. 22, 2023 — Countless meteorites have struck Earth in the past and shaped the history of our planet. It is assumed, for example, that meteorites brought with them a large part of its water. The extinction of the ...

Meteorites Reveal Likely Origin of Earth's Volatile Chemicals

Jan. 27, 2023 — By analyzing meteorites, researchers have uncovered the likely far-flung origin of Earth's volatile chemicals, some of which form the building blocks of ...

Asteroid Findings from Specks of Space Dust Could Save the Planet

Jan. 23, 2023 — New research into the durability and age of an ancient asteroid made of rocky rubble and dust, revealed significant findings that could contribute to potentially saving the planet if one ever hurtled ...

17-Pound Meteorite Discovered in Antarctica

Jan. 18, 2023 — Antarctica is a tough place to work, for obvious reasons -- it's bitterly cold, remote, and wild. However, it's one of the best places in the world to hunt for meteorites. That's partly because ...

New Study Models the Transmission of Foreshock Waves Towards Earth

Dec. 22, 2022 — As the supersonic solar wind surges towards Earth, its interaction with our planet's magnetic field creates a shock to deflect its flow, and a foreshock filled with electromagnetic waves. How these ...

How Magnetism Could Help Explain Earth's Formation

Nov. 3, 2022 — A peculiar property of the Earth's magnetic field could help us to work out how our planet was created 4.5 billion years ago, according to a new scientific ...

Space Probe's Collision With Asteroid: Study Assesses Ejecta Momentum Enhancement

Nov. 1, 2022 — On September 26, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft crashed into Dimorphos, a moonlet of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos, at ...

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Summaries
Headlines

Impact That Killed the Dinosaurs Triggered 'Mega-Earthquake' That Lasted Weeks to Months

Oct. 6, 2022 — Some 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that ...

Collision May Have Formed the Moon in Mere Hours, Simulations Reveal

Oct. 4, 2022 — Most theories claim the Moon formed out of the debris of a collision between the Earth and an object about the size of Mars, called Theia, coalescing in orbit over months or years. A new simulation ...

Comet Impacts Formed Continents When Solar System Entered Arms of Milky Way

Aug. 24, 2022 — New research has found evidence that Earth's early continents resulted from being hit by comets as our Solar System passed into and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy, turning ...

One More Clue to the Moon's Origin

Aug. 10, 2022 — Researchers discover the first definitive proof that the Moon inherited indigenous noble gases from the Earth's mantle. The discovery represents a significant piece of the puzzle towards ...

What Part of a Space Rock Survives to the Ground?

Aug. 8, 2022 — When a small asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere from space, its surface is brutally heated, causing melting and fragmenting. Therefore, it was somewhat of a mystery why the rocks near the ...

What a Martian Meteorite Can Teach Us About Earth's Origins

July 12, 2022 — What do Mars and Iceland have in common? These days, not so much. But more than 4.5 billion years ago, it's possible the Red Planet had a crust comparable to Iceland today. This discovery, ...

Yellowstone's History of Hydrothermal Explosions Over the Past 14,000 Years

June 9, 2022 — While much of public attention on Yellowstone focuses on its potential to produce large supereruptions, the hazards that are much more likely to occur are smaller, violent hydrothermal explosions. ...

Early Earth: Tungsten Isotopes in Seawater Provide Insights Into the Co-Evolution of Earth's Mantle and Continents

May 17, 2022 — Scientists have demonstrated that a new geochemical archive -- 182-Tungsten in banded iron formations -- can be used to simultaneously trace both the evolution of the Earth's mantle and ...

Sampling the Deep Graveyard of Earth's Earliest Crust

Apr. 28, 2022 — Scientists show that remnants of the roots of Earth's first crust are still present in the terrestrial mantle and contribute to magmas erupted at the surface over Earth's ...

Earth's Atmosphere May Be Source of Some Lunar Water

Apr. 27, 2022 — Hydrogen and oxygen ions escaping from Earth's upper atmosphere and combining on the moon could be one of the sources of the known lunar water and ice, according to new ...

Ancient Helium Leaking from Core Offers Clues to Earth's Formation

Mar. 28, 2022 — Helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas, is leaking out of Earth's core, a new study reports. Because almost all helium-3 is from the Big Bang, the gas leak adds evidence that Earth formed inside ...

Giant Impact Crater in Greenland Occurred a Few Million Years After Dinosaurs Went Extinct

Mar. 9, 2022 — Researchers have dated the enormous Hiawatha impact crater, a 31-kilometer-wide meteorite crater buried under a kilometer of Greenlandic ice. The dating ends speculation that the meteorite impacted ...

Secondary Cratering on Earth: The Wyoming Impact Crater Field

Feb. 14, 2022 — Several dozen small impact craters, 10--70-m in size, have been discovered in southeastern Wyoming. A team of U.S. and German geoscientists found these ancient craters in exposed sedimentary layers ...

Moons May Yield Clues to What Makes Planets Habitable

Feb. 1, 2022 — Because the moon is so important to life on Earth, scientists conjecture that a moon may be a potentially beneficial feature in harboring life on other planets. Most planets have moons, but ...

Did Comet's Fiery Destruction Lead to Downfall of Ancient Hopewell?

Feb. 1, 2022 — The rapid decline of the Hopewell culture about 1,500 years ago might be explained by falling debris from a near-Earth comet that created a devastating explosion over North America, laying waste to ...

Size Doesn’t Matter: Rock Composition Determines How Deadly a Meteorite Impact Is

Dec. 13, 2021 — A new study has found that the minerology of the rocks that a meteorite hits, rather than the size of the impact, determines how deadly an impact it will ...

Scientist Reveals Cause of Lost Magnetism at Meteorite Site

Nov. 22, 2021 — A scientist has discovered a method for detecting and better defining meteorite impact sites that have long lost their tell-tale craters. The discovery could further the study of not only ...

Vast Patches of Glassy Rock in Chilean Desert Likely Created by Ancient Exploding Comet

Nov. 2, 2021 — Heat from a comet exploding just above the ground fused the sandy soil into patches of glass stretching 75 kilometers, a new study ...

A New Earth Bombardment Model

Oct. 21, 2021 — A team has updated its asteroid bombardment model of the Earth with the latest geologic evidence of ancient, large collisions. These models have been used to understand how impacts may have affected ...

Earth’s ‘solid’ Inner Core May Contain Both Mushy and Hard Iron

Oct. 6, 2021 — New research suggests that Earth's 'solid' inner core is, in fact, endowed with a range of liquid, soft, and hard structures which vary across the top 150 miles of the inner ...

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