Meteorites
A Group of Meteorites All Came From a Destroyed Planetesimal With a Magnetic Core
Before our Solar System had planets, it had planetesimals. Scientists think that most of the meteorites that have struck Earth…
Terrible Luck. The Only Person Ever Killed by a Meteorite – Back in 1888
What are your chances of getting smacked – and killed -- by a meteorite? One astronomer put the odds of…
Almost 800,000 Years Ago, an Enormous Meteorite Struck Earth. Now We Know Where.
20% of the surface of Earth's Eastern Hemisphere is littered with a certain kind of rock. Black, glossy blobs called…
A Distant Asteroid Collision Gave Earthly Biodiversity An Ancient Boost
About 466 million years ago, there was an asteroid collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The collision…
Metallic Asteroids Might Have Had Volcanoes Erupting Molten Iron. That’s So Metal
Remember the asteroid Psyche? It's the largest known asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It's been in…
Bright Fireball Explodes Over Ontario, Meteorite Fragments Might Have Reached the Ground
A meteorite recently was spotted in the Great Lakes region and could have left fragments in the area around Bancroft,…
As Meteorites Slice Through the Atmosphere, They’re Sculpted Into Cones
A new study reveals why many meteors, when they enter Earth's atmosphere, become cone-shaped as they heat up.
Fossilized Clams Had Evidence of a Meteorite Impact Inside Them
When an extraterrestrial object slams into the Earth, it sends molten rock high into the atmosphere. That debris cools and…
Astronomers Find a Chunk of a Comet Inside a Meteorite
The early days of the Solar System are hard to piece together from our vantage point, billions of years after…
Not all the Earth’s Water Came From Comets
We have comets and asteroids to thank for Earth's water, according to the most widely-held theory among scientists. But it's…