The discovery of salty mineral evaporites on Ryugu indicates that watery environments may have been widespread in the early solar system.
asteroids
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ceres’s Organics Might Not Be Homegrown After All
Scientists have been unable to determine whether the dwarf planet’s organics were produced by its own chemical processes or delivered by asteroids. New evidence implicates asteroids.
Posted inNews
Life’s Building Blocks Found in Bennu Samples
The discovery of amino acids, abundant ammonia, and the bases of DNA and RNA on asteroid Bennu suggest that materials essential to life might be widespread throughout the solar system.
Posted inNews
Magnetic Meteorites May Explain How the Solar System Assembled
Faint magnetic properties in primitive asteroid fragments suggest an early magnetic field strong enough to shepherd the growth of the outer planets.
Posted inFeatures
El pasado, presente y futuro de traer muestras extraterrestres
La obtención de muestras de cuerpos distantes del sistema solar ha revolucionado nuestra comprensión del cosmos y del lugar que ocupamos en él.
Posted inNews
These Five Craters May Have Birthed a Third of Martian Meteorites
Researchers have homed in on five craters on the Red Planet that are the likely sources of Martian meteorites.
Posted inNews
A Binary Asteroid System Gets Its Geological Close-Up
Researchers are learning more about the geology and evolution of the binary asteroid system Didymos from high-resolution imagery collected by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.
Posted inNews
Im Miozän gab es über dem heutigen Deutschland ein „doppeltes Meteoriten-Desaster”
Mit der Analyse der Sedimente, die durch den Einschlag durcheinandergeworfen wurden, konnten Forschende zeigen, dass zwei Einschlagkrater zwischen Schwäbischer und Fränkischer Alb nicht durch den gleichzeitigen Einschlag von zwei aneinander gekoppelten Himmelskörpern, sondern durch die Einschläge von zwei verschiedenen Meteroiten entstanden.
Posted inFeatures
Saving the Planet with Radar Astronomy
Once the largest telescope in the world, Arecibo kept watch for dangerous asteroids using radar. With it gone, the world is preparing the next generation of radar observatories.
Posted inFeatures
The Past, Present, and Future of Extraterrestrial Sample Return
Retrieving samples from distant solar system bodies has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it.