There was little time for water from the Earth’s atmosphere to contaminate the meteorite after it fell.
Trustees of the Natural History Museum
In 2021, searchers recovered a meteorite that fell over the UK just hours earlier. Scientists have now reconstructed its story.
Scientists think Mars rovers may have some blind spots when it comes to finding signs of life.
Shutterstock
Our Mars rovers might not be sensitive enough to detect signs of life. But lessons from Antarctica might make future missions more successful.
Shutterstock
The Solar System as we know it doesn’t really make sense without a ninth planet. So then why can’t we find it?
Sarah McMullan / UKFN / Global Fireball Observatory
Within hours of its landing, samples of the Winchcombe meteorite had been recovered and its origins tracked back beyond Mars to the asteroid belt.
Artist’s view of what Mars would have looked like a billion years ago.
Stuart Rankin/Flickr
A study has found that microorganisms living on Mars billions of years ago may have left the planet uninhabitable.
Elena11/Shutterstock
Believe it or not, this sort-of happened before in Earth’s history – and now we have the Moon.
NASA / JPL
In the void of interstellar space, the most distant emissary of humankind carries a message that will last for billions of years.
kevinmgill/flickr
The unusual planetary system has a host star orbited by two giants. One has an incredible odd route around its star. And the other (unlike our own gas giants) is hellishly hot.
This image shows meteors that skimmed the atmosphere during just one night in March this year.
When the meteor exploded into pieces above New Zealand, it produced a shock wave strong enough to be picked up by earthquake seismometers. But any fragments have likely dropped into the ocean.
Pluto was recategorized from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006.
(Shutterstock)
A curious kid asks: Why does it matter if Pluto is a planet or a dwarf planet?
The 1833 Leonid Meteor storm, as seen over Niagara Falls.
Edmund Weiß (1888)
Could the Tau Herculid meteor shower put on a spectacular show next week? Only time will tell.
An artist’s concept of an astronaut walking on Mars. But what would happen if the astronaut weren’t wearing a space helmet?
cokada/E+ via Getty Images
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and one of our closest neighbors in space. But it’s not a very welcoming place for an Earthling to visit.
There is a U.S. flag on the Moon, but in the future, countries may start to turn access to the Moon and asteroids into serious wealth.
NASA/Neil A. Armstrong
Current trends suggest that powerful nations are defining the rules of resource use in space and satellite access in ways that will make it hard for developing nations to ever catch up.
Pluto, the largest of the dwarf planets. This image was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The dwarf planets in our Solar System are cold, dark, far away and full of surprises.
SpaceX
There has never been a dedicated mission sent to the “ice giants”, Uranus and Neptune. But there may be one on the horizon.
Lia Koltyrina/Shutterstock
Humans might one day be able to live somewhere else in the Universe.
ISAS / JAXA
The Hayabusa2 mission brought a piece of asteroid Ryugu back to Earth, where it has helped scientists resolve a long-standing puzzle.
Image of Ryugu taken by the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft in 2018.
JAXA/wikipedia
We may be on the brink of discovering whether water and organic material, which enabled life on Earth, came from asteroids.
SPP 1992 (Patricia Klein)
Most of what we know about planets outside our Solar System relates to gas-giant planets. A new study has identified and characterised a smaller exoplanet.
Curtin University
Tiny pieces of an asteroid have revealed an unlikely origin for much of the water in Earth’s oceans.