(PhysOrg.com) -- When a meteor impacts a planet or a moon, it always stops at a relatively shallow depth, even when impacting at high speeds. Until now, researchers have assumed that all objects impacting a granular medium ...
As our solar system was forming nearly four and a half billion years ago, a planet-sized object struck the early Earth, leading to the formation of the moon, possibly from a hot, spinning cloud of rock vapor called a synestia. ...
Space Exploration
Jul 10, 2019
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Conditions in the vast universe can be quite extreme: Violent collisions scar the surfaces of planets. Nuclear reactions in bright stars generate tremendous amounts of energy. Gigantic explosions catapult matter far out into ...
General Physics
Apr 15, 2016
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The meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013 was "a wake-up call," according to a University of California, Davis scientist who participated in analyzing the event. The work is published November 7, ...
Space Exploration
Nov 6, 2013
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0
The "super-eruption" of a major volcanic system occurs about every 100,000 years and is considered one of the most catastrophic natural events on Earth, yet scientists have long been unsure about what triggers these violent ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 12, 2011
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3
Shock-synthesized diamonds said to prove a catastrophic impact killed off North American megafauna can't be found.
Earth Sciences
Aug 30, 2010
22
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- The expanding spot discovered on Venus last month may not have garnered as much attention as the meteor impact with Jupiter, but its cause is certainly more puzzling.
On February 1, 2019 a bright meteor crossed the sky over Cuba in the middle of the day. The phenomenon, which was followed by a smoke trail (a characteristic cloud left by the burn in the atmosphere of a meteoroid) and a ...
Space Exploration
Feb 15, 2019
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60
Studies at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have made the first real-time observations of how silica – an abundant material in the Earth's crust – easily transforms into a dense glass ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 20, 2017
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10
When the dinosaurs became extinct, plenty of small bird-like dinosaurs disappeared along with giants like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. Why only some of them survived to become modern-day birds remains a mystery. Now, researchers ...
Archaeology
Apr 21, 2016
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