Hydrogen released during large impacts might have boosted Mars’s surface temperature above freezing for thousands or even millions of years, enabling liquid water to flow over the Red Planet.
Katherine Kornei
Katherine Kornei is a freelance science journalist covering Earth and space science. Her bylines frequently appear in Eos, Science, and The New York Times. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Posted inFeatures
Deluges of Data Are Changing Astronomical Science
Astronomers today are more likely than ever to access data from an archive rather than travel to a telescope—a shift that’s democratizing science.
Posted inENGAGE, News
“Icefin” Investigates a Glacial Underbelly
An instrument-laden submersible reveals where—and how rapidly—the Antarctic glacier is melting.
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Marauding Moons Spell Disaster for Some Planets
In solar systems beyond our own, some moons might eventually collide with their host planets, new simulations suggest.
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NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Is a Smashing Success
The mission, focused on the Didymos-Dimorphos binary asteroid system, proved that an asteroid’s orbit can be altered by kinetic impactor technology.
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Satellite Data Reveal Uptick in Cover Cropping on Farms
Over the course of a decade, farmers growing corn and soybeans in the U.S. Midwest increased their adoption of cover cropping—a tenet of so-called conservation agriculture—by fourfold.
Posted inENGAGE, News
Martian Meteorites Offer a Tantalizing Glimpse of the Red Planet
By studying these literal chunks of Mars, scientists are learning more about the Red Planet’s deep interior and impact history.
Posted inENGAGE, News
The “Black Gold” Flowing Under Los Angeles
Functioning oil fields, some with cleverly camouflaged infrastructure, are tucked into the urban sprawl of the Los Angeles basin. But recent legislation could change that.
Posted inNews
Rare Meteorites Shed Light on Diamond Formation
By studying meteorites believed to be remnants of the catastrophic breakup of a dwarf planet, researchers are learning how lonsdaleite, a particularly hard type of diamond, forms in nature.
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Impact Crater off the African Coast May Be Linked to Chicxulub
The underwater crater, spotted serendipitously in commercial observations of seafloor sediments, is believed to have formed at roughly the same time as the famous Cretaceous-Paleogene impact event.