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Artist’s illustration of a gamma-ray burst. Energy from the explosion is beamed into two narrow, oppositely directed jets. Credit: NASA/Swift/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith and John Jones

Sometimes when a star collapses into a supernova, it releases gamma-ray bursts GRBs which last just a few seconds, but during that time they can release as much energy as the Sun will produce in its entire lifetime. They are so intense that, if pointed at the Earth from even the most distant edge of our galaxy, they could easily cause a mass extinction. It’s thought that a gamma-ray burst may have caused the Ordovician extinction around 440 million years ago, which wiped out 85% of all species at the time.

Clearly, the farther away a planet is from gamma-ray bursts, the better its chances of harboring advanced for...

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...