Another Launch Disaster Strikes Russia!

Eight minutes after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a Russian Proton-M rocket experienced a catastrophic failure in its third stage rocket, resulting in the complete atmospheric burn-up of the rocket and its payload, a Mexican Communications Satellite. After launching at 11:47am local time in Kazakhstan, the rocket experienced an emergency situation 497 seconds into the flight, reported as a failure in the rocket’s Breeze-M third stage.  The carrier rocket was launching the Mexsat 1 communications satellite, known as Centenario, into orbit, in a contract with the Mexican government. After reaching a 161 Km altitude, the rocket failed and fell back to...

Biggest Asteroid Impact Crater Ever Discovered in Australia

We have found evidence of ancient impacts all across the Earth, from the famous Chixulub crater in Mexico to the Sudbury Basin a little bit closer to my home.  From Space the remains look nothing like craters, millions of years of sediment and growth hide the massive regions from obvious detection, but signs remain of these massive events, even after millions of years.  This week, what is possibly the largest impact crater basin ever discovered has been found in central Australia.  And it is thought to originate from the breakup of a massive 400 Km asteroid into two pieces that...