Stowaways from space provide link between impact, biggest extinction in Earth history
...gon molecules are characteristic of meteorites and comets and must have been formed in space. The gas me...ary. Both papers showed that it's possible for comets and meteorites to deliver organic compounds to Earth, adding credence to the theory that early life ...... found in meteorites - many the suspected cores of comets that smashed to earth - and are presumed to exist ...ollisions. Much of the debris would have resembled comets - dirty snowballs thought to be mostly slushy water surrounding a rocky core - slamming into Earth a...Chemistry of life in outer space is topic of two-day symposium, April 4-5
...ating the likelihood that meteorites and dust from comets and asteroids brought water, gases and even organic compounds such as amino acids to Earth. These extraterrestrial hitchhikers may have "seeded" Earth and played a role in the origin of life on our planet. Highlights of the symposium include...Krauss book explores universe from oxygen atom's perspective
...r planets in the solar system. Inside one of many comets that rained down upon the earth and helped to seed it with water to form oceans, the water molecule containing our oxygen atom reacted with carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid, falling in an early acid rain. Reacting with rock, it became trapped in...Astrobiologist and national security expert Christopher Chyba named 2001 MacArthur
...cal record to understand the role of asteroids and comets in delivering organic molecules to the surface of the early Earth." National security Foundation officials noted that Chybas research draws from many disciplines including geology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology. "The expe...NIST 'microhotplate' may help search for extraterrestrial life
...ry atmospheres, investigating organic materials on comets for studies of the history of the universe, or monitoring air quality in habitats. This advanced measurement system already has proven applicable to environmental monitoring and military operations. A microhotplate is a tiny machined structure consi...Cosmic impacts implicated in both the rise and fall of dinosaurs
...arth's crust are building geological evidence that comets or asteroids colliding with earth not only helped wipe out the dinosaurs, but may have originally helped bring them to prominence about 200 million years ago. Dennis V. Kent, Rutgers geology professor, was among a team of geologists who analyzed foot...New CU-NASA research belies previous idea that Mars was once warm, wet planet
...nd computer models to show that large asteroids or comets hit the planet some 3.5 billion years ago. These ... Mars that likely came from water in asteroids and comets hitting the planets and the evaporation of some ice from polar caps and ice beneath the impacts woul...Popular Science announces second annual 'Brilliant 10:' the country's top young scientists
...ing high school's rooftop telescopes to search for comets and flickering variable stars. He just wanted to see far. Some 15 years later and half a globe away, he and his team have already discovered 10 of the oldest objects in the cosmos--one of which, sent its light our way nearly 13 billion years ago, a s...Princeton paleontologist produces evidence for new theory on dinosaur extinction
...o tracking and diverting Earth-bound asteroids and comets in the future. Keller does not work with big fossils such as dinosaur bones commonly associated with paleontology. Instead, her expertise is in one-celled organisms, called foraminifera, which pervade the oceans and evolved rapidly through geologic ...If comets hitting the Earth could cause ecological disasters...nd the planetary system. This belt gradually leaks comets into interstellar space, some of which will eventually reach proto-planetary discs and star-forming ...