Impact cratering is the process by which hypervelocity collisions of extraterrestrial bodies (e.g., asteroids, comets, meteoroids) with a planetary surface excavate material and form characteristic circular depressions. It involves three main stages: contact and compression, where shock waves propagate and generate extreme pressures and temperatures; excavation, during which target material is displaced outward and upward, forming a transient cavity and ejecta; and modification, where gravitational collapse and rock rheology reshape the transient cavity into a final crater morphology. Impact cratering is a fundamental geologic process that influences crustal structure, surface evolution, and volatile redistribution on solid bodies throughout the Solar System.
A decades-long scientific debate over the origins of the Silverpit Crater in the southern North Sea has been resolved. New evidence confirms that it was caused by an asteroid or comet impact about 43–46 million years ago.
Planetary Sciences
Sep 22, 2025
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Asteroid 2024 YR4 caused quite a stir last year when it was discovered and originally calculated to have a 3% chance of hitting Earth. Since then models have been refined and while it no longer has a chance of hitting Earth, ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 22, 2025
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354
Buried deep in Greenland's ice sheet lies a puzzling chemical signature that has sparked intense scientific debate. A sharp spike in platinum concentrations, discovered in an ice core (a cylinder of ice drilled out of ice ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 19, 2025
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161
Some asteroids are more dangerous than others, according to a report published in Nature Astronomy by an international team of researchers, led by astrophysicist Auriane Egal of the Montreal Planetarium in Canada. The team ...
Astronomy
Sep 17, 2025
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95
Throughout the planet, there are only a handful of known tektite strewn fields, which are large swaths of land where natural glass (tektite) was strewn about after forming from terrestrial material and being ejected from ...
In a scientific breakthrough with cosmic implications, researchers have, for the first time, precisely dated the emergence of microbial life within a meteorite impact crater—revealing that life not only survives catastrophe, ...
Astrobiology
Sep 17, 2025
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115
New Curtin University research has uncovered a striking link between the structure of our galaxy and the evolution of Earth's crust, showing its development was shaped by the impact of meteorites during its journey through ...
Astronomy
Sep 16, 2025
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122
During the early days of our solar system, giant impacts were common occurrences. Earth likely experienced such an impact that created our moon, and Mars may have been struck by objects that created its asymmetrical surface ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 11, 2025
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Most people are aware that an asteroid wiped out much of life on Earth around 65 million years ago, and this knowledge contributes to that chill of fear that many people experience, at least occasionally, that something like ...
Note: On February 11, 2026, the article by Christopher R. Moore et al., "A 12,800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules, and platinum anomaly recorded in multiple cores from Baffin Bay," on which the news item ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 6, 2025
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