Category Astronomy/Space

A rock fulgurite revealed that lightning strikes alter quartz’s crystal structure on the atomic level.

Researchers once believed only meteorites could do so. At a rock outcropping in southern France, a jagged fracture runs along the granite. The surface in and around the crevice is discolored black, as if wet or covered in algae. But the real explanation for the rock’s unusual features is more dramatic: a powerful bolt of lightning.

Using extremely high-resolution microscopy, Prof Gieré et al found that not only had the lightning melted the rock’s surface, resulting in a distinctive black “glaze,” but had transferred enough pressure to deform a thin layer of quartz crystals beneath the surface, resulting in distinct atomic-level structures called shock lamellae...

>>providing insight into the role massive stars play in the evolution of the Milky Way and the origins of the Solar System. Radioactive aluminium (aluminium-26, or Al26) is an element that emits gamma radiation through its decay enabling astronomers to image its location in our galaxy. Studying how Al26 is created in massive stars, scientists have distinguished between previously conflicting assumptions about its rate of production by nuclear fusion.

Scientists measured the fusion of helium and sodium at 2 separate particle accelerators in Canada and Denmark, and the rate of production of Al26 was determined to within a factor of 2...

In the northern region of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum, swirl-shaped patterns of light and dark suggest that a surface layer of exotic ices has flowed around obstacles and into depressions, much like glaciers on Earth. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

NASA’s New Horizons mission has found evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto’s surface, at the left edge of its bright heart-shaped area. New close-up images from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) reveal signs of recent geologic activity, something scientists hoped to find but didn’t expect. “We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said mission co-investigator John Spencer of SwRI.

The new close-up images show fascinating detail within the Texas-sized plain (Sputnik Planum) ...

Approaching its 3rd anniversary of Mars landing, the rover has found a target unlike anything it has studied before – bedrock with surprisingly high levels of silica. Silica is a rock-forming compound containing silicon and oxygen, commonly found on Earth as quartz. This area lies just downhill from a geological contact zone the rover has been studying near “Marias Pass” on lower Mount Sharp.

>>Curiosity team decided to back up the rover 151 feet from the geological contact zone to investigate the high-silica target dubbed “Elk.” The decision was made after they analyzed data from 2 instruments, the laser-firing Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), which show elevated amounts of silicon and hydrogen, respectively...