ANSMET

Solar System

Magnets Are Bad News for Meteorites

Common handheld magnets can erase crucial data in ancient meteorites.

2023 CX1

Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson

Small Asteroid Spotted Hours Before Demise

The swift detection of a small asteroid, and recovery of its surviving fragments, shows we’re getting better at spotting incoming objects.

Meteoroids deliver organics

Astrobiology

Scientists Wonder: Is the Origin of Life Extraterrestrial?

A new analysis method has revealed DNA building blocks in meteorites, suggesting that these prebiotic molecules might have formed during the solar system's earliest years.

Solar nebula

Solar System

Meteorite Evidence Suggests Earth’s Water Was Here Before Earth Was

Where did Earth’s water come from? One of the oldest meteorites on Earth is adding new pieces to an old puzzle.

Protoplanetary disk

Solar System

The Origin of Earth’s Water

Scientists have discovered a new candidate source for Earth's water: building blocks of the primordial solar system known as enstatite chondrites.

Young solar system

Solar System

Radioactive Aluminum Sheds Light on Solar System History

Astronomers thought giant stars were reponsible for flooding the early system with a radioative isotope — but the Sun itself might have made it.

ROV Hercules

Solar System

Nautilus Expedition Recovers Possible Seafloor Meteorites

The expedition off the coast of Washington state performs a first, recovering meteorite fragments from a documented fall.

Happy finders!

Explore the Night with Bob King

Michigan Meteorite Tally Multiplies

They look like leftover gravel from a freshly laid asphalt road, but the black stones that spattered across the snow in the wake of the January 16th Michigan fireball were anything but terrestrial. They belonged to a tiny asteroid on a recent foray to the outer asteroid belt but now…