Deux nouvelles études montrent qu’un environnement saumâtre et riche en carbone sur l’ancêtre de l’astéroïde Bennu était propice à l’assemblage d’éléments constitutifs de la vie.
- Associate Professor, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University
Two new studies show a briny, carbon-rich environment on the parent body of the Bennu asteroid was suitable for assembling the building blocks of life.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has delivered pieces of asteroid Bennu, which scientists hope will offer a window into the early era of the Solar System billions of years ago.
Rubble pile asteroids are like giant space cushions, floating around the Solar System for billions of years. Here’s what that means for planetary defence.
Tiny pieces of an asteroid have revealed an unlikely origin for much of the water in Earth’s oceans.
The Yarrabubba asteroid landed 2.2 billion years ago. Around the same time, the icy Earth went through a big thaw.
A meteorite hitting Earth at many kilometres per second puts ‘ground zero’ target rocks under immense pressure. A shock wave faster than the speed of sound can result – and new materials created.
Zirconia is a mineral with a crystal structure made from the elements zirconium and oxygen. It looks pretty like diamond, but is only worth a fraction of the value.
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