Researchers working in Chile’s Atacama Desert have collected thousands of “atacamaites” that suggest a meteorite struck the region roughly 8 million years ago.
craters
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Moon’s Largest Crater Holds Clues About Early Lunar Mantle
An ancient impact splashed evidence of the Moon’s early mantle makeup onto its surface. Now researchers are piecing together models, maps, and samples to bring these mysteries to light.
Posted inNews
Ancient Eruption May Change Our Understanding of Modern Volcanoes
Bubbles trapped in magma from a 1,000-year-old event reveal how scoria cones might erupt and what impact they may have on the landscape and atmosphere.
Posted inNews
An Asteroid “Double Disaster” Struck Germany in the Miocene
By analyzing sediments jostled by ground shaking, researchers have shown that two impact craters near Stuttgart were created by independent asteroid impacts rather than a binary asteroid strike.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Predicting the Unique Shape of Craters on Asteroid (16) Psyche
Models link the variety of crater shapes expected on (16) Psyche with the interior structure of this unique asteroid, in preparation for the arrival of the Psyche probe in 2026.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Moon May Hold Billions of Tons of Subterranean Ice at Its Poles
By modeling over 4 billion years of the Moon’s impact history, scientists estimate that the lunar poles may harbor billions of metric tons of subsurface ice.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Self-Repairing Blemishes on the Surface of Mars
A new study of small impact craters at Mars landing sites suggests that active processes degrade and infill depressions at similar rates in locations separated by thousands of kilometers.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Who Wants to Count All the Craters on Mars? Not Me!
Humans found hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars greater than 1 kilometer in diameter, but now computers automate the process delivering crater counts as well as geologically meaningful ages.
Posted inNews
Chicxulub Impact Crater Hosted a Long-Lived Hydrothermal System
Chemical and mineralogical evidence of fluid flow—potentially conducive to microscopic life—was revealed in rock cores extracted from the crater’s “peak ring.”
Posted inNews
Podcast: Instruments of Unusual Size
Rumbling volcanoes act like giant musical instruments that researchers can study to better monitor eruptions.