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7 February 2020
Surfing space dust bunnies spawn interplanetary magnetic fields
New research finds that fine dust from pulverized space rocks is riding the solar wind past multiple spacecrafts, which are detecting the clouds of fine debris as a temporary changes in the local magnetic field.
30 January 2019
New study estimates amount of water in near-Earth space rocks
The study’s authors estimate there are between 400 and 1200 billion kilograms (440 to 1.3 billion U.S. tons) of water that could be extracted from the minerals in these asteroids. In liquid terms, that’s between 400 billion and 1,200 billion liters (100 billion and 400 billion U.S. gallons) of water. That’s enough to fill between 160,000 and 480,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
4 December 2012
Egg-shaped asteroids more likely to survive impact
Large asteroids typically hit Earth with enough force to vaporize the entire rock. One asteroid the size of San Francisco formed the 40-mile-wide Morokweng crater in South Africa – but puzzlingly, in 2006, scientists discovered a solid piece of the space rock the size of a bowling ball. The discovery spurred a scientific mystery: How could any of it have survived?