Future spacecraft may travel farther by drawing momentum from planets, sunlight, and the solar wind instead of onboard fuel. Every conventional rocket faces the same problem: it must carry the material that propels it. Since Konstantin Tsiolkovsky described the rocket equation in 1903, spacecraft have burned fuel and expelled it backward to move forward under [...]

China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter caught a rare glimpse of 3I/ATLAS as it swept past Mars, revealing the hazy coma and tail of a comet born beyond our solar system. The interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS just flew past Mars, and China’s Tianwen-1 mission managed to snap some pics with its high-resolution camera. According to the China [...]

By analyzing nickel isotopes preserved in the 66-million-year-old debris left by the Chicxulub impact, researchers conclude that the asteroid responsible for Earth’s last mass extinction most likely belonged to an exceptionally rare class of primitive meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites of the Ornans type (CO chondrites).

The post Dinosaurs May Have Been Wiped Out by ‘Oddball’ Space Rock appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.