Category Astronomy/Space

Some of the Earth’s building material was stardust from red giants. Astronomers can also explain why the Earth contains more of this stardust than the asteroids or the planet Mars, which are farther from the sun.

Around 4.5 billion years ago, an interstellar molecular cloud collapsed. At its centre, the Sun was formed; around that, a disc of gas and dust appeared, out of which the earth and the other planets would form. This thoroughly mixed interstellar material included exotic grains of dust: “Stardust that had formed around other suns,” explains Maria Schoenbaechler, a professor at the Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology at ETH Zurich...

Scientists may have figured out the origins of planets. Scientists may have figured out how dust particles can stick together to form planets, according to a Rutgers co-authored study that may also help to improve industrial processes.

In homes, adhesion on contact can cause fine particles to form dust bunnies. Similarly in outer space, adhesion causes dust particles to stick together. Large particles, however, can combine due to gravity – an essential process in forming asteroids and planets. But between these two extremes, how aggregates grow has largely been a mystery until now.

The study, published in the journal Nature Physics, found that particles under microgravity – similar to conditions believed to be in interplanetary space – d...

Slashed across the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus are four straight, parallel fissures or ‘tiger stripes’ from which water erupts. These fissures aren’t quite like anything else in the Solar System. Researchers now think they have a model to explain them.

Saturn’s tiny, frozen moon Enceladus is a strange place. Just 300 miles across, the moon is thought to have an outer shell of ice covering a global ocean 20 miles deep, encasing a rocky core...

Archaeon can crunch meteorite and feed on it. Chemolithotrophic microorganisms derive their energy from inorganic sources. Research into the physiological processes of these organisms – which are grown on meteorite – provides new insights into the potential of extraterrestrial materials as a source of accessible nutrients and energy for microorganisms of the early Earth. Meteorites may have delivered a variety of essential compounds facilitating the evolution of life, as we know it on Earth.

An international team around astrobiologist Tetyana Milojevic from the University of Vienna explored the physiology and metal-microbial interface of the extreme metallophilic archaeon Metallosphaera sedula...