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We’ve long known a disaster took place about 66 million years ago, where in a geological instant, 75% of the plants and animals on Earth were wiped out, including all the land-roaming dinosaurs. But here’s a new detail about that event: Even though we can’t pinpoint exactly what year this disaster took place, we now know it happened during the springtime. Most scientists agree the disaster was an asteroid impact, where an asteroid at least 10 kilometers wide struck the Chicxulub region in the present-day Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact released 2 million times more energy than the most...

More than 1500 years ago, a vast culture known as the Hopewell tradition (or Hopewell culture) stretched across what is today the eastern United States. The cause of the culture's decline has long been debated, with war and climate change two of the possibilities, but now a new avenue of inquiry has opened up: debris from a near-Earth comet. Researchers working across 11 different Hopewell archaeological sites covering three states have found unusual concentrations of iridium and platinum in their digging – telltale signs of meteorite fragments. Meanwhile, a charcoal layer in the sediment suggests an intense period of high...

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati have found evidence of a cosmic cataclysm 1,500 years that may be responsible for the downfall of the Hopewell Culture. The Hopewell Culture was a widely dispersed set of pre-Columbian Native American populations connected by a common network of trade routes from 100 BC to AD 500 in the Middle Woodland period. The researchers found evidence of a cosmic airburst at 11 Hopewell archaeological sites in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley in the United States, which rained debris down into the Earth’s atmosphere creating a fiery explosion around 1,500 years ago...

'Biggest UK space impact found' By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News The impact occurred about 1.2 billion years ago. Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by a team of scientists. Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen think a large object hit north-west Scotland about 1.2 billion years ago. The space rock struck the ground near the present-day town of Ullapool, they report in Geology journal. The scientists found what they believe to be debris which was flung out when the impact crater was formed. "If there had been human...

MADISON – Aaron Rodgers has faced some of the most ferocious defensive linemen the National Football League has ever unleashed on professional football fields. The Green Bay Packers quarterback has passed his way to the top of his game, becoming among the most accurate, respected and highest paid players in NFL history. Now, Rodgers is taking on a much more brutal enemy: The murderous warlords of the Democratic Republic of Congo in command of a civil conflict that has claimed more than 3 million lives. Green Bay’s QB has signed up as a celebrity front man for Raise Hope for...

The launch is currently targeted for 7:48 a.m. on Tuesday, January 8. The launch was originally scheduled for December 30, but it was pushed back because of a delay involving another SpaceX launch. The launch will complete Iridium’s mission of replacing its entire network of communication satellites with 75 new satellites.

The satellite’s owner, Iridium, confirmed that it was indeed a component of their spacecraft, and more specifically it was a piece of the defunct Iridium Satellite #70, which had been in orbit for two decades. As with all satellites, the spacecraft eventually reentered Earth’s atmosphere, where it was expected to be completely destroyed. Somehow, this rather large piece of the spacecraft managed to survive the intense inferno and tumbled all the way down to an unsuspecting farmer’s walnut orchard.

The vehicles are westbound on the 10 Freeway in Banning when the rocket’s plume begins to cut through the darkening sky. The driver in the vehicle with the camera and his children can be heard talking about the rocket in amazement while he slows for the wall of brake lights forming in front of them as other drivers take notice. Moments after they drive under the South San Gorgonio Avenue overpass, a thud is heard and then a white four-door vehicle in the next lane is shoved into the car in front of it by a van that rear-ended it....

In a break from its now-standard practice, SpaceX will not attempt a landing of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on its next launch this week, the company confirmed Dec. 19. A SpaceX spokesperson said that the company is not planning to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 that is launching a fourth set of 10 Iridium Next satellites Dec. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The company carried a successful static fire test of the booster at the pad Dec. 17. SpaceX offered few details about the decision not to land the booster. "These are...

In the face of unrelenting days of very poor weather and a range conflict with another very critical rocket launch, SpaceX is pushing back the return debut of their private Falcon 9 rocket carrying a revolutionary fleet of voice and data commercial communications relay satellites for Iridium to no earlier than next weekend, Jan 14. Earlier indications of a nearly weeks long launch delay from Monday, Jan. 9 to next Saturday morning, Jan. 14, were officially confirmed today, Jan. 8, by SpaceX and their Iridium Communications customer. “Launch moving due to high winds and rains at Vandenberg,” SpaceX announced today,...

KT Boundary and Iridium Ever dreamt of hiking over the landscape and finding a mineral vein rich with ores, perhaps even silver or gold glittering in the sunshine, like in the Hand of Faith vein in Australia? How about joining the gold rush fever—without trekking up the Chilkoot Pass as thousands of prospectors did well over 100 years ago? The chances of finding a “mother lode” are slim, even when trying hard. They are similar to winning the jackpot in a big lottery. But don’t give up just yet; there is a new “horizon” for your exploration activity—the new frontiers...

The Mexican government has placed six states on high alert following the theft of a vehicle with radioactive material. That alert comes less than a year after Mexico had an almost identical case where authorities throughout most of southern Mexico spent days searching for the missing material. The warning was issued on Sunday evening by Mexico’s Secretariat of the Interior, just one day after the theft of a commercial pickup that had been transporting industrial material, including a yellow container with a rod of Iridium-192. (...)

Impact cratering is one of the most fundamental geological processes. On many planets, impact craters are the dominant geological landform. On Earth, erosion, plate tectonics, and volcanic resurfacing continually destroy the impact cratering record, but even here, the geological, biological, and environmental effects of impact cratering are apparent. Impact events are destructive and have been linked to at least one of the 'big five' mass extinctions over the past 540 million years. Intriguingly, impact craters can also have beneficial effects. Many impact craters are associated with economic metalliferous ore deposits and hydrocarbon reservoirs. This Special Paper from The Geological...

Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than...

(Phys.org)—When a huge meteor collided with Earth about 2.5 million years ago in the southern Pacific Ocean it not only likely generated a massive tsunami but also may have plunged the world into the Ice Ages, a new study suggests. A team of Australian researchers says that because the Eltanin meteor – which was up to two kilometres across - crashed into deep water, most scientists have not adequately considered either its potential for immediate catastrophic impacts on coastlines around the Pacific rim or its capacity to destabilise the entire planet's climate system. "This is the only known deep-ocean impact...

The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests.Previously, scientists had identified a huge impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the event that spelled doom for the dinosaurs. Now evidence for a second impact in the Ukraine has been uncovered. This raises the possibility that the Earth may have been bombarded by a whole shower of meteorites. The new findings are published in the journal Geology by a team lead by Professor David Jolley of Aberdeen University. When first proposed in 1980, the...

Iridium Communications Inc. today unveiled its next-generation “Iridium 9602” satellite data transceiver at its annual Partners Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. The Iridium 9602 is a full-duplex short-burst data (SBD) transceiver designed for embedded applications in the rapidly growing market for remote asset tracking and monitoring solutions. The product, which is the culmination of a two-year R&D program, has completed prototype testing, and Iridium expects to begin commercial deliveries in June. “The smaller, lower-cost Iridium 9602 will serve as the data communication engine for a wide range of portable tracking and monitoring devices, leveraging Iridium’s global coverage and low-latency, two-way data...

Facing a looming gap in its mobile satellite communications coverage, the U.S. Navy plans to tap a new service developed by commercial provider Iridium Communications LLC as it waits for its next-generation constellation to come on line. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which buys commercial satellite capacity on behalf of Pentagon users, plans to spend about $20 million this year on the Netted Iridium service, Bruce Bennett, DISA’s director of satellite communications, teleports and services, said in a Dec. 14 interview. DISA spent about $70 million on Iridium mobile satellite services in 2009, and the total amount should increase...

WASHINGTON - Iridium Satellite LLC confirmed today that one of its satellites was destroyed Tuesday in an unprecedented collision with a spent Russian satellite and that the incident could result in limited disruptions of service. According to an e-mail alert issued by NASA today, Russia's Cosmos 2251 satellite slammed into the Iridium craft at 11:55 a.m. EST (0455 GMT) over Siberia at an altitude of 490 miles (790 km). The incident was observed by the U.S. Defense Department's Space Surveillance Network, which later was tracking two large clouds of debris. "This is the first time we've ever had two intact...

Police were seeking help Thursday locating a stolen truck that was carrying radioactive material. The white 2001 Ford F-350 was taken Wednesday morning from the Sunlight Food Mart at 1935 South Jupiter Road in Garland. Garland police Lt. Scot Bunch said the truck has a cab-over camper and flames painted on the hood and front quarter panels. It has the name Bonded Inspections Inc. on the sides, and Texas license plate 5YL-T51. ------------------------------------------------------- Anyone with information about the theft or the suspect can call the Garland Police Department at 972-485-4840 or the investigating officer at 972-205-2060.