Asteroid

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. That's one theory ... another is that all life on Earth descended from organisms that originated on the Red Planet before hitching an interplanetary journey aboard meteorites to Earth. In an effort to provide a definitive answer, researchers at MIT and Harvard are developing an instrument to compare the genetic makeup of Martian microbes with that of terrestrial life. If they find correlations between the two it could prove that we are all descended from Martians, which would make us invaders from Mars. Read More

If there’s a killer asteroid or comet hurtling towards Earth it’s probably best to know about it sooner rather than later. However, space is a big place and keeping our eyes out for these little blighters is no mean feat even with a mighty automated telescope to hand. Fortunately, astronomers in Hawaii have just announced they’ve successfully managed to boot up the Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System) telescope, also known as PS1. Working from dusk-to-dawn every night Pan-STARRS is able to map one-sixth of the sky each month, allowing astronomers to track every moving object, calculate their orbits and identify any potential threats to Earth. Read More

Not long ago, Gizmag featured an article about scientists capturing a rare image of upwards lightning. Now a different set of ‘men in white coats’ has taken shots of fireballs streaking across the night sky that then led to the discovery of a tiny and extremely rare meteorite in Australia’s vast Nullarbor Plain. Not only that, the group also traced the meteorite’s roots back to its orbit and the asteroid from where it came. Read More