Following enormous collisions, such as asteroid impacts, some amount of material from an impacted world may be ejected into space.
Impact events
Posted inAstrogeology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Impact events, Plant Biology, Press Release
A Fossil Fruit Shows Ancestors Of Coffee And Potatoes Survived The Cretaceous Extinction
The discovery of an 80-million-year-old fossil plant pushes back the known origins of lamiids to the Cretaceous, extending the record of nearly 40,000 species of flowering plants including modern-day staple […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Icy Worlds, Impact events, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Titan
Modeling The Formation Of Selk Impact Crater On Titan: Implications For Dragonfly
Selk crater is an ∼ 80 km diameter impact crater on the Saturnian icy satellite, Titan. Melt pools associated with impact craters like Selk provide environments where liquid water and […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extinction events, Habitable Zones, Impact events, Press Release
About The Loss Of A Primordial Atmosphere Of Super-Earths By Planetesimal Impacts
We consider planets composed of water ice and rock, located far from a central star. In an earlier study, computing the growth of planets by continuous accretion, we found that […]
Posted inAstrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Icy Worlds, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Panspermia, Status Report
New Signatures of Bio-Molecular Complexity in the Hypervelocity Impact Ejecta of Icy Moon Analogues
Impact delivery of prebiotic compounds to the early Earth from an impacting comet is considered to be one of the possible ways by which prebiotic molecules arrived on the Earth.
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Extinction events, Impact events, Plant Biology, Press Release
Discovery Of Sunscreen-like Chemicals In Fossil Plants Reveals UV Radiation Played A Part In Mass Extinction Events
New research has uncovered that pollen preserved in 250 million year old rocks contain compounds that function like sunscreen, these are produced by plants to protect them from harmful ultraviolet […]
Posted inExtinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Impact events, Press Release
Dinosaurs Were On The Up Before Asteroid Downfall
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that the dinosaurs were struck down in their prime and were not in decline, at the time the asteroid hit.
Posted inAstrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Impact events, Press Release
The Effect Of Collisional Erosion On The Composition Of Earth-analog Planets In Grand Tack models: Implications For The Formation Of The Earth
Impact-induced erosion of the Earth’s early crust during accretion of terrestrial bodies can significantly modify the primordial chemical composition of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE, that is, the composition of […]
Posted inExtinction events, Impact events, Press Release
Simulation Of The Global Impact Of the Dinosaur-Killing Chicxulub Asteroid Impact Event
The miles-wide asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species.
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Impact events, Press Release
Reduced Late Bombardment On Rocky Exoplanets Around M-dwarfs
Ocean-vaporizing impacts of chemically reduced planetesimals onto the early Earth have been suggested to catalyse atmospheric production of reduced nitrogen compounds and trigger prebiotic synthesis despite an oxidized lithosphere.