25 Most Intense Archaeological Discoveries In Human History

NASA: Saturn Moon Enceladus Is Able To Host Life – It’s Time For A New Mission

ver since studies started suggesting that chemical reactions between water and rock on Saturn’s moon Enceladus could provide enough energy in the water to feed microbial life, scientists have been searching for proof that the right sort of reactions really do occur. And during its last dive through the icy plumes that Enceladus erupts into space in October 2015, the Cassini spacecraft has finally managed to find it – in the form of molecular hydrogen. The finding, published in Science , means the moon can now be considered highly likely to be suitable to host microbial life. In fact, the results should undermine the last strong objection from those who argue it could not. Enceladus is a small (502km in diameter) moon with an icy surface, a rocky interior and an ocean of liquid water sandwiched between the two. Cassini discovered back in 2005 that Enceladus is venting water into space, in the form of plumes of ice crystals escaping from cracks in th...

A New View of the Moon’s Formation.

This artist’s rendering shows the collision of two planetary bodies. A collision like this is believed to have formed the moon within the first 150 million years after our solar system formed. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Within the first 150 million years after our solar system formed, a giant body roughly the size of Mars struck and merged with Earth, blasting a huge cloud of rock and debris into space. This cloud would eventually coalesce and form the moon. For almost 30 years, planetary scientists have been quite happy with this explanation–with one major exception. Although this scenario makes sense when you look at the size of the moon and the physics of its orbit around Earth, things start to break down a little when you compare their isotopic compositions–the geological equivalent of a DNA “fingerprint.” Specifically, Earth and the moon are too much alike. The expectation has long been that the moon should carry the isotopic “fingerprint” of the foreign body, which ...

MeteoritesSpace World’s second-largest meteorite discovered in Argentina

The Campo del Cielo meteorite field where Gancedo was discovered translates to ‘field of heaven’ Credit: Ministerio de Gobierno/Facebook The second-largest meteorite ever found has been exhumed outside the small Argentinian town of Gancedo. The 30-tonne rock, named after the town, was discovered on September 10 and dug up by an excavation team which was shocked by its massive size. “While we hoped for weights above what had been registered, we did not expect it to exceed 30 tonnes,” Astronomy Association of Chaco president Mario Vesconi said. It is believed to have crashed to earth about 4,000 years ago as part of an iron meteorite shower covering hundreds of square kilometres, 1,000km north-west of Buenos Aires at a site now known as Campo del Cielo. The original asteroid is estimated to have weighed about 600 tonnes and entered Earth’s atmosphere at 14,000 kilometres per hour, where it broke up into a shower of smaller meteorites, according to Scientific American. Ma...

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