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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Craters show Earth is Bombarded at Random

    March 8, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A thankfully rare event: an asteroid hits the Earth. (Visualisations: iStock / Solarseven)

    A thankfully rare event: an asteroid hits the Earth. (Visualisations: iStock / Solarseven)

    Do mass extinctions, like the fall of the dinosaurs, and formation of large impact craters on Earth occur together at regular intervals? “This question has been under discussion for more than 30 years now,” says Matthias Meier, ETH Zurich’s Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology. As late as 2015, US researchers indicated that impact craters were formed on Earth around every 26 million years. “We have determined, however, that asteroids don’t hit the Earth at periodic intervals,” says Meier, refuting the popular hypothesis.

    In the past, researchers have even postulated the existence of a companion star to the Sun...

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    Flashy 1st images arrive from NOAA’s GOES-16 Lightning Mapper

    March 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    This is one hour of GOES-16's Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) lightning data from Feb. 14.

    This is one hour of GOES-16’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) lightning data from Feb. 14, when GLM acquired 1.8 million images of the Earth. It is displayed over GOES-16 ABI full disk Band 2 imagery. Brighter colors indicate more lightning energy was recorded; color bar units are the calculated kilowatt-hours of total optical emissions from lightning. The brightest storm system is located over the Gulf Coast of Texas, the same storm system in the accompanying video. This is preliminary, non-operational data. Credits: NOAA/NASA

    Detecting and predicting lightning just got a lot easier...

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    Paleolake Deposits on Mars might look like Sediments in Indonesia

    March 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    Lake Towuti, Indonesia. (A) Regional context for Lake Towuti on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Red box indicates approximate location of part B. Background is the Ocean base map from ESRI et al. (2015). (B) Generalized geologic map of Lake Towuti and the surrounding area showing the dominance of ultramafic material. Map is modified from Costa et al. (2015). (C) Bathymetry of Lake Towuti showing the location of the two analyzed sediment cores at the distal margins of the Mahalona River delta (white dots labeled 4 for TOW4 and 5 for TOW5). River inputs are shown in thin blue lines, with the Mahalona River shown as a thick blue line. Credit: Goudge et al. and GSA Bulletin

    Lake Towuti, Indonesia. (A) Regional context for Lake Towuti on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Red box indicates approximate location of part B. Background is the Ocean base map from ESRI et al. (2015). (B) Generalized geologic map of Lake Towuti and the surrounding area showing the dominance of ultramafic material. Map is modified from Costa et al. (2015). (C) Bathymetry of Lake Towuti showing the location of the two analyzed sediment cores at the distal margins of the Mahalona River delta (white dots labeled 4 for TOW4 and 5 for TOW5). River inputs are shown in thin blue lines, with the Mahalona River shown as a thick blue line. Credit: Goudge et al. and GSA Bulletin

    Timothy A...

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    How a Mineral found in Martian meteorites may provide clues to Ancient Abundance of Water

    March 6, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    q. The dark, narrow, 100-meter-long streaks flowing downhill within the Hale Crater on Mars in this rendering are inferred to have been formed by flowing water in this false-color image that was draped on a digital terrain model. Credit: NASA JPL, University of Arizona 2. An impact crater on Mars, named Melas Dorsa, and its surroundings show a rich geologic history. The image was created by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express. Studies of the transformation of a synthetic version of a mineral known as whitlockite suggest that Mars had a more water-rich past than previously thought. Credit: G. Neukum/ESA,DLR, FU Berlin 3. Naturally formed crystals of the mineral whitlockite, which is rare on Earth, are visible in this sample on display at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

    1. The dark, narrow, 100-meter-long streaks flowing downhill within the Hale Crater on Mars in this rendering are inferred to have been formed by flowing water in this false-color image that was draped on a digital terrain model. Credit: NASA JPL, University of Arizona
    2. An impact crater on Mars, named Melas Dorsa, and its surroundings show a rich geologic history. The image was created by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express. Studies of the transformation of a synthetic version of a mineral known as whitlockite suggest that Mars had a more water-rich past than previously thought. Credit: G. Neukum/ESA,DLR, FU Berlin
    3. Naturally formed crystals of the mineral whitlockite, which is rare on Earth, are visible in this sample on display at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum...

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