News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Early Earth is often described as ‘Hadean’ for good reason. Arising from the ashes of a collision that gave us our Moon, the primordial eon was characterized by hellish heat trapped beneath a thick blanket of carbon dioxide and water vapor. Strangely those conditions should have been inhospitable for far longer than they were. … Read more
A huge asteroid will safely fly by Earth today (March 3), and you can watch it live online. The Virtual Telescope Project is planning to stream live telescope views of the asteroid 138971 (2001 CB21) during its approach. The space rock is technically classified as “potentially hazardous”, but there’s no need to worry. The asteroid … Read more
Grains of sand on a beach can tell us more than you might think about the history of the planet, new research reveals – something to think about the next time you’re heading to the coast for a swim or splash around. Scientists have developed a new metric to determine what they call the … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. Then, … Read more
In 2020, a team of astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) discovered the closest black hole to Earth in the HR 6819 system, just 1,000 light-years away, only to have other scientists dispute the findings. As it turns out, those critics seem to have been correct. In new research, an international team of scientists … Read more
What astronomers had concluded to be a black hole a mere 1,120 light-years from Earth instead appears to be something quite different: a two-star system where one of the stars is sucking the life out of the other. Far from disappointing, though, the conclusion gives astronomers an exciting opportunity to explore how these ‘vampiric’ stars … Read more
Gazing at the night sky can evoke a sense of wonder regarding humanity’s place in the Universe. But that’s not all it can evoke. If you’re knowledgeable about asteroid strikes like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, then even a fleeting meteorite can nudge aside your enjoyable sense of wonder. What if? Luckily, … Read more
The Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption that shook the South Pacific Ocean in January will not affect Earth’s climate despite sending clouds of ash dozens of miles high into the atmosphere, a new study confirmed. Powerful volcanic eruptions, such as the one that ripped apart the uninhabited Polynesian island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai on Jan. 15, … Read more
Patagonian ice fields are among some of the fastest-melting glaciers on the planet. As these glaciers disappear, the earth that once lay beneath them is rebounding upwards at rates much faster than expected. Now, scientists have worked out a gap in tectonic plates that began forming some 18 million years ago underneath now-shrinking ice … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. … Read more