在地球形成之初，小行星和微行星的频繁撞击塑造了地壳，并创造出可能支持前生物化学反应、甚至可能孕育早期生命的环境。
asteroids
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Cosmic Bombardment Created Potential for Prebiotic Chemistry
Frequent impacts from asteroids and planetesimals in Earth’s earliest days shaped the planet’s crust and created environments that may have supported prebiotic chemistry, and possibly even early life.
Posted inNews
Asteroid Hosts All Ingredients for DNA and RNA
Samples collected from asteroid Ryugu contain the four genetic “letters” of DNA, reinforcing the hypothesis that the chemical origins of life were present when the solar system began.
Posted inFeatures
Small, Faint, or Fast, Rubin Will Find It
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is set to redraw the map of the solar system by discovering millions of small, fast-moving objects hidden all around us.
Posted inNews
Primordial Impact May Explain Why the Moon Is Asymmetrical
Analysis of surface samples from the Chang’e-6 mission suggests that an asteroid may have vaporized parts of the lunar mantle, suppressing volcanic activity on the farside of the Moon.
Posted inNews
What Tumbling Asteroids Tell Us About Their Innards
Data from the Gaia space observatory reveal that many slowly spinning asteroids rotate chaotically. A new theory links that chaos to their inner structure and history.
Posted inNews
An Asteroid Impact May Have Led to Flooding near the Grand Canyon
There’s remarkable synchronicity between the timing of a paleolake in what is today Grand Canyon National Park and the formation of nearby Barringer Meteorite Crater.
Posted inNews
A Flash, a Boom, a New Microbe Habitat
After an asteroid struck Finland long ago, microscopic life colonized the impact site within a few million years, new research reveals.
Posted inNews
Submerged Crater near Europe Tied to an Impact
New subsurface imaging and rock samples suggest that Silverpit Crater formed from an impact that occurred roughly 45 million years ago.
Posted inNews
Hayabusa2’s Final Target is 3 Times Smaller Than We Thought
It also spins twice as fast as previous estimates suggested. A spacecraft touchdown will be challenging, but not impossible.