After NASA’s Dawn spacecraft had passed by the asteroid Vesta, on its way to rendezvous with Ceres, mission scientists noticed that its surface was banged up with a lot of very large craters. Its biggest impact crater is Rheasilvia, which measures 505 km in diameter. They expected that Ceres would also be seriously pitted with giant impact basins too. […]
Antarctic Glacier Melt Could Raise Global Sea Level by Nearly 3 Meters
Posted May 20th, 2016 at 4:15 pm (UTC-4)
An international group of scientists say if climate change continues at its current rate, Antarctica’s Totten Glacier might become so unstable that it could eventually release enough water to produce an almost 3 meter rise in the global sea-level sometime in the next several hundred years. A year ago, this same group of scientists from […]
Nearby Supernovae Showered Earth and Moon With Radioactive Iron
Posted April 15th, 2016 at 4:00 pm (UTC-4)
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Artist Animation of Star Explosion (NASA/JPL/Australian National University) Two new studies suggest radioactive bits of a nearby star or stars that exploded into a supernova or supernovae showered the Earth and Moon with radioactive iron a couple of million years ago. Both studies found the stellar evidence in concentrations of an isotope of iron called […]
Moon Born from a Violent Head-On Collision
Posted February 1st, 2016 at 3:28 pm (UTC-4)
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It’s been theorized by a number of scientists that the moon was formed as the result of a collision between an early Earth and a protoplanet known as Theia, named after the mother of the goddess of the moon in Greek mythology, some 4.5 billion years ago (around 100 million years after Earth formed). But scientists seem […]
January 2016 Science Images
Posted January 29th, 2016 at 3:55 pm (UTC-4)
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Curiosity Hits Silica Jackpot; Sleep Aid & Strokes; Freshwater Supply Threatened
Posted December 18th, 2015 at 4:27 pm (UTC-4)
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Finds Plenty of Silica As they reviewed data gathered by the Mars Rover, scientists found that some rocks in Gale Crater contained the chemical compound silica. In fact they say it’s a very high amount of the compound. According to the researchers, silica is actually a combination of silicon and oxygen. […]
New Report Predicts Possible Dip in Global CO2 Emissions
Posted December 7th, 2015 at 3:24 pm (UTC-4)
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An international collaboration of scientists, in a new report, predicts the percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels may actually dip slightly in 2015 compared to 2014 levels. “In 2014, global CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels grew by just 0.6 percent,” said the report’s lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth […]
Phobos May Shatter; Study: Poles Won’t Flip; Webb Space Telescope
Posted November 25th, 2015 at 4:00 pm (UTC-4)
Mars May Shatter its Largest Moon Scientists in California have found that the largest moon of Mars, Phobos, is slowly inching closer to Mars. They predict that once the gravity of Mars finally overpowers Phobos, in about 20 to 40 million years, the moon will probably be shredded to bits. The scientists from the University […]
Earth’s Atmosphere Got Its Oxygen in Periodic Bursts Over a 100 Million Year Period
Posted November 20th, 2015 at 5:11 pm (UTC-4)
For about the first 2.1 billion years of Earth’s history, its atmosphere didn’t have enough oxygen to support complex life. Scientists believe that Earth’s first atmosphere,formed after its creation, was probably made up of hydrogen and helium. Then as a result of volcanic eruptions that spewed gases from Earth’s interior, in a process known as […]
A Close Look at Saturn Moon’s North Pole; Imitation Skin Senses Pressure
Posted October 16th, 2015 at 7:00 pm (UTC-4)
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Cassini Explores North Pole Area of Saturn’s Moon Enceladus NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been sending back spectacular images and providing scientists with valuable data about the Saturn and its many moons since its arrival there in 2004. On October 14th, Cassini returned to Saturn’s ice-covered and 6th largest moon Enceladus, the latest of many trips […]