Rare meteorites created in violent celestial collision

A tiny fraction of meteorites on earth contain strikingly beautiful, translucent, olive-green crystals embedded in an iron-nickel matrix. Called pallasites, these "space gems" have fascinated scientists since they were first ...

Dawn spacecraft prepares for trek toward dwarf planet

(Phys.org)—NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study two distant solar system destinations, to help scientists answer questions about the formation of our solar system. The spacecraft ...

Iron in the Earth's core weakens before melting

The iron in the Earth's inner core weakens dramatically before it melts, explaining the unusual properties that exist in the moon-sized solid centre of our planet that have, up until now, been difficult to understand.

Earth's iron core is surprisingly weak, researchers say

The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as "rock-solid" as has been thought, say two Stanford mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet's ...

Lab team develops capability for atomistic simulations

(PhysOrg.com) -- Conventional scientific wisdom says that the interatomic forces between ions that control high-temperature processes such as melting are insensitive to the heating of the electron "glue" that binds the ions ...

Iron 'fingerprints' point astronomers to supernova suspects

(Phys.org) —An international team of astronomers using data from the Japan-led Suzaku X-ray observatory has developed a powerful technique for analyzing supernova remnants, the expanding clouds of debris left behind when ...

Iron rain fell on early Earth, new Z machine data supports

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine have helped untangle a long-standing mystery of astrophysics: why iron is found spattered throughout Earth's mantle, the roughly 2,000-mile thick region between Earth's ...

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