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Hot Topic
Solar System
Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids
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| Impacts Could be Boon for Subterranean Life |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
04/16/12 |
| A drilling project into the Chesapeake Bay impact crater has found evidence that the subsurface may become more habitable after a large impact. |
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| Close Encounter with Comet Hartley 2 |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
11/05/10 |
| NASA's EPOXI spacecraft flew by comet Hartley 2, and the images it captured show a peanut-shaped nucleus with many jets of gas spewing from its surface. Studying comets like Hartley 2 can help astrobiologists determine if comets played a role in the origin of life on Earth. |
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| The Impact that Shattered Santa Fe |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
08/09/10 |
| A large meteorite impact can have a profound effect on life. The explosive force is often compared to a nuclear detonation, and the debris tossed high into the atmosphere can alter our planet´s climate. In the mountains of New Mexico, scientists have found evidence for an ancient meteorite strike -- even though the impact crater is long gone. |
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| Shooting Meteorites in a Barrel |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
02/25/10 |
| High-impact lab experiments simulate whether the building blocks of life could have survived the rough arrival on Earth via meteorite impact. |
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| Comets May Give Life a Hand |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
09/24/09 |
| A comet hitting Earth would seem to bring only death and destruction, but one group is studying how such an impact could promote certain necessary chemical steps in the origin of life. The researchers are focusing on how comet collisions might have influenced the molecular orientation, or handedness, of our planet's biology. |
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| Catastrophic Darkness |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
09/10/09 |
| New studies of mixotrophic algae have shown how such organisms could survive the darkened skies that follow a major asteroid impact. Such studies indicate how life manages to survive after a mass extinction event. |
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| Searching for Meteorites in the Deserts of Oman |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
05/18/09 |
| A group of Swiss geologists, who have conducted systematic meteorite searches in Oman since 2001, recently returned from their latest hunt. Their findings could provide valuable information about the early history of the solar system. |
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| Cometary Life Limit |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/12/09 |
| Large debris disks around certain stars may imply a high rate of killer comets that wipe out any chance of life forming in these stellar systems. |
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| Could Life on Earth Have Come From Ceres? |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/05/09 |
| The dwarf planet Ceres is rarely mentioned as a candidate for habitability, but the possible presence of an ocean and hydrothermal vents suggests it is plausible. If life developed on Ceres long ago, could it have seeded the young Earth? |
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| Cosmic Collisions |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
07/03/08 |
| Researchers have been using a vast database to show that asteroids are shaped by small impacts over time. |
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