Today 02:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 3 hours ago by C C.)
The moon got a massive new crater
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon...sa-orbiter
EXCERPTS: The crater is 225 meters wide and formed in April or May 2024, Robinson said. According to predictions based on other lunar landmarks, a crater that big should form only once in 139 years. The discovery can help highlight the risks impacts pose to future astronauts. [...] That could be bad news for future moon bases. Bits of rock ejected from impacts could hit lunar habitats at high speeds from very far away. Buildings will need to be designed to survive that. “You’ve got to protect your assets to withstand small particles hitting you at order of magnitude a kilometer per second,” Robinson said... (MORE - missing details)
Giant craters may reveal if Psyche is a lost planetary core
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/g...etary-core
INTRO: When we think of asteroids, we almost immediately think of giant rocks bouncing around like the iconic chase scene in Empire Strikes Back, and we often hear how they are remnants from the birth of the solar system. While the asteroids that comprise the Main Asteroid Belt of our solar system are not only spread far apart from each other, they are also not all made of rock.
One asteroid approximately the size of the State of Massachusetts called 16 Psyche is made of metal, which planetary scientists hypothesize could be the remnants of a protoplanet’s core that didn’t build into a full-fledged planet. But how did such a unique asteroid form?
Now, an international team of scientists might be one step closer to answering that conundrum, as they attempted to ascertain how a large impact in the north polar region of 16 Psyche might have formed. The findings from this incredible study were recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets and could help scientists gain insight into planetary formation and evolution, specifically during the early days of the solar system... (MORE - details)
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon...sa-orbiter
EXCERPTS: The crater is 225 meters wide and formed in April or May 2024, Robinson said. According to predictions based on other lunar landmarks, a crater that big should form only once in 139 years. The discovery can help highlight the risks impacts pose to future astronauts. [...] That could be bad news for future moon bases. Bits of rock ejected from impacts could hit lunar habitats at high speeds from very far away. Buildings will need to be designed to survive that. “You’ve got to protect your assets to withstand small particles hitting you at order of magnitude a kilometer per second,” Robinson said... (MORE - missing details)
Giant craters may reveal if Psyche is a lost planetary core
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/g...etary-core
INTRO: When we think of asteroids, we almost immediately think of giant rocks bouncing around like the iconic chase scene in Empire Strikes Back, and we often hear how they are remnants from the birth of the solar system. While the asteroids that comprise the Main Asteroid Belt of our solar system are not only spread far apart from each other, they are also not all made of rock.
One asteroid approximately the size of the State of Massachusetts called 16 Psyche is made of metal, which planetary scientists hypothesize could be the remnants of a protoplanet’s core that didn’t build into a full-fledged planet. But how did such a unique asteroid form?
Now, an international team of scientists might be one step closer to answering that conundrum, as they attempted to ascertain how a large impact in the north polar region of 16 Psyche might have formed. The findings from this incredible study were recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets and could help scientists gain insight into planetary formation and evolution, specifically during the early days of the solar system... (MORE - details)