dust

We've all heard this one: when you drink a glass of water, that water has already been through a bunch of other people's digestive tracts. Maybe Attila the Hun's or Vlad the Impaler's; maybe even a Tyrannosaurus Rex's.   Well, the same…
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As the Southern Hemisphere enters summer, a catastrophic bushfire season is well underway on Australia's east coast. Homes have been destroyed, koalas are dying, and there's currently a thick smog of smoke blanketing parts of the state…
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When a huge dust storm on Mars—like the one in 2018—reaches its full power, it can turn into a globe-bestriding colossus. This happens regularly on Mars, and these storms usually start out as a series of smaller, runaway storms. NASA…
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If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in the rainforest every year, but the past 11…
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In the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole's event horizon, conditions are pretty wild. But travel a little farther out, and other objects can be snared in its gravitational influence - like the stars orbiting the…
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A meteorite found in the Algerian desert in 1990 is yielding new clues about the formation of the Solar System. New analysis of meteorite Acfer 094 has revealed tiny pores distributed throughout the rock - ancient fossilised holes where…
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As bushfires continue to rage in nearly every corner of Australia, an entirely different sort of nightmare has afflicted the outback town of Mildura in the state of Victoria. On Thursday, just as the sun was reaching its peak, hot, high…
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The Orionids meteor shower streaks across the sky on Monday and Tuesday nights, bringing about 15 to 20 shooting stars per hour. The meteors barrel into Earth's atmosphere with unusual speed, travelling about 148,000 mph (238,000 km/h).…
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Astronomers across the globe were quick to begin studying 2I/Borisov - the second known interstellar object to visit our solar system - almost immediately upon its detection in August.   Those observations are already yielding…
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Something mysterious happened nearly half a billion years ago that triggered one of the most important changes in the history of life on Earth. Suddenly, there was an explosion of species, with the biodiversity of invertebrate animals…
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