It seems that in recent years, asteroids have been flying past Earth with increasing frequency. Does it mean that more asteroids are coming around? Is it the beginning of the end? Will one of them hit us soon and doom us all? Probably not, but there’s always a chance. It’s almost certain that the reason we’ve been able to find so many new asteroids, and especially near-Earth asteroids, is because of the technology increase in Astronomy the past few years. New telescopes and tracking methods exist with the sole purpose of finding near-Earth asteroids, somewhat of an early warning system...
Panspermia. Look it up. It sounds more like science fiction than science fact, but imagine the implications. It is the idea that life is everywhere, and is seeded throughout the universe by comets, asteroids, meteors, rogue planets, and even spacecraft, by way of unintended contamination of microbes. It could also explain why there is life on Earth. Because we still know so little about the Universe around us, panspermia is considered a plausible scenario. To test parts of this theory, a team from the University of Zurich’s Institute of Anatomy used small pipettes to actually place double stranded DNA on the outside of...
When a large meteorite collides with the Earth, it can be travelling upwards of 40 Kilometres per second. This collision releases a huge amount of energy, which can vaporize rocks and create interesting and unique geological structures. For decades, scientists have been debating the existence of a rare type of crystal called Lonsdaleite, which is associated with impacts. Strange small crystals were discovered in Arizona in the 1950s around an ancient impact crater called ‘Canyon Diablo.’ It led some scientists to believe that the mineral had mechanical properties similar to diamond, but that it was structurally superior. If it existed in a pure form...
