crater

Chemists Finally Unravel the Mystery of Siberia’s Explosive Craters

Underground methane blasts are behind Siberia’s puzzling exploding craters, according to new research.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover: Its Path to Finding Organics on Mars

It was a banner week for NASA's Perseverance. Let's rove down memory lane to fully appreciate the rover's current moment.

Hawaii’s Kīlauea Volcano Erupts as New Lake of Lava Forms

A stunning lava lake has formed in the crater of Kīlauea as the USGS and National Park Service monitor the eruption and what could come next.

NASA Chose a Really Sweet Spot to Land Its Upcoming Lunar Rover

Called VIPER, the four-wheeled rover will spend 100 days searching for signs of ice and other resources on the Moon.

Our First Look at Samuel L. Jackson’s Return to the Unbreakable Universe

The Metal Gear Solid movie has found a writer. Guillermo del Toro’s plans for a Pinocchio movie are dead. A Stranger Things star could be headed to Narnia. Plus, new footage from Coco, Chadwick Boseman on Black Panther’s tech-genius sister, and The Flash’s Elongated Man in costume. Spoilers, go! Glass The Daily Mail has set…

A Crater on Mars That’s Only “New” in a Cosmic Sense

How can you tell if a crater is recent? The rim is sharp and the material ejected from its formation is well-preserved. Since it’s relatively recent — in geological time — this crater could have a “steep, active slope,” so NASA will monitor it for changes. This image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging…

We’re Keeping A Close Eye On This Hole Punched In The Surface Of Mars

This crater on Mars is so fresh, it still has sharp, clean edges unsoftened by countless landslides. This one-kilometer diameter crater near Sirenum Fossae on Mars isn’t a brand-new impact spotted within hours, but the relative lack of mass wasting events indicate it’s young on geological timescales. Because we expect that weathering and gravity will…

A Color-Saturated Look At Mercury’s Massive, Ancient Caloris Basin

Mercury’s Caloris Basin is seen in an enhanced color mosaic. The massive crater, formed some 4 billion years ago, is orange. Smaller craters made subsequently are rendered in blue, while orange splotches around the perimeter may be volcanic vents. (Side note: Props to the punster who titled the photo “All About that Basin” on the…

This is not an asteroid crater. Or so says a new study looking at the moon’s largest dark spot Oceanus Procellarum (a.k.a Ocean of Storms). But the newly proposed origin is equally cool: A stretching of the lunar crust, driven by a process that researchers compare to plate tectonics here on Earth. Image: Oceanus Procellarum…

Mercury, The Madman, and the Drunken Celestial

A crater on Mercury bares the name of Liang Kai, a human painter from China’s Southern Song Dynasty. While Kai is from hundreds of years ago, living 1140 to 1210 CE, substantial erosion and infilling indicates his crater is much older. Liang Kai went by the nickname Madman Liang, although I doubt that was by…

Dunes Let Us Study One Of The Universe’s Fastest Geologic Processes

With a gentle rainbow of topographical changes, and the scalloped detail of active dunes, this digital terrain model is pure indulgence for the eyes. It’s also part of an ongoing study on using aeolian processes to investigate sedimentation and atmospheric science on Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS Sand dunes are an aeolian feature, formed…

Zumba Crater, Mars

The walls on the sides of Zumba Crater on Mars are so steep, it looks like an eyeball staring back at you from the digital terrain model. The ejecta forms a hill of red and brown around the perfectly circular blue crater floor. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS This digital terrain model (DTM) is constructed…

A Rainbow Crater on Mars

This impact crater on Mars is decked out in rainbow colours reflecting the topography of the area. The dark blues and purple of the crater floor rapidly digs through the high-elevation red, yellow, and green of the surrounding plains. This digital terrain model marks a fresh impact crater on the surface of Mars, so young…

Mapping the Moon

Selenography, the study of surface and physical features of the Moon, is a field where science meets art. From careful engravings and sketches of early observations to lunar photography, it is all gorgeous. So settle in, and enjoy some lunar eye-candy. 1610, Galileo Galilei In 1610, Galileo Galilei published this engraving of the moon in…

Where on Earth is this freaky lava pool? Why do people hate love locks? Is it true that fire ants love the suburbs? And what do the soon-to-be-lost sounds of the industrial age sound like? All your answers are here, in this week’s landscape reads! A Campaign to Ban Love Locks In Paris Who hates…

Erosion in a Martian Crater

This well-preserved crater on Mars features evidence of mass wasting — reoccurring slope linea formation. Material is being eroded from the high-elevation crater lip, forming shifting gullies into the basin below. Two photographs from HiRISE on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are blended together to produce this high-resolution digital terrain model (DTM). The rainbow colours indicate…

A round moon with a square crater

The moon is full of craters both large and small, but typically they come in only one shape: round. So why are scientists spotting square craters on the moon?

A Spectacular New Crater Shows the Hostile Face of Mars

This photo from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a fresh crater about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter at the center. The impact happened somewhen between July 2010 and May 2012. View the map-projected version of the image here: The enhanced colors reveals a large, rayed…

After the asteroid hits, we’ll build a post-apocalyptic city inside the crater

From destruction comes rebirth. Chinese architects Xiaomia Xiao, Lixiang Miao, Xinmin Li, and Minzhao Guo dream up a world in which a devastating asteroid has hit, and we use the crater as the site of a thriving city. The architects are largely interested in how to use the crater space rather than the why of…

The world’s biggest, oldest impact crater hollowed out Greenland three billion years ago

The asteroid that hit Earth 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaur was at least six miles across and left behind a crater over 110 miles across. But that’s nothing compared to a possibly newly discovered impact site. It’s not confirmed yet, but a potential crater site in Greenland would be the oldest,…