Science News Roundup: The Big Splat!
Image of the far side of the moon and Earth taken by Galileo from 3.9 million miles away. The shadowy indentation near the moon’s south pole is the Aitken Basin, one of the moon’s oldest known impact craters.. (Credit: NASA)
Earth may have had two moons
Our top story this week is a new study that claims that early in its history, Earth may have had two moons and that the collision between the two moons is the reason the geology of the far and near sides of the moon are so different.
Although we’ve read many articles on the topic this week, our favorite description of the collision comes from the very first article we found in which Seth Borenstein of the AP describes the collision as “The Big Splat.”
Another great description of what scientists believe would have been a very low speed collision comes from study coauthor Erik Asphaug, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who advised Space.com to imagine “a ball of Gruyere colliding into a ball of cheddar.”
The Big Splat! continues below the fold with:
- Famous early bird fossil just a dinosaur after all
- International Space Station to take a dive
Archaeopteryx may have been just a dinosaur after all
This week my daughter and I were startled to learn that the Archaeopteryx may not have been the world’s first bird after all, but merely a bird-like dinosaur a few hops away from the bird branch of evolution.
International Space Station to Take a Dive
This week, Russia announced plans to drown the International Space Station in the Pacific Ocean sometime between 2015 and 2020. We here at Caterpickles Central weren’t ready to hear that. So of course we thought you should know it too.
What about you? What caught your eye this week?
Related articles
- ‘Big splat’ may explain the moon’s mountainous far side (eurekalert.org)
- Science News Roundup: Shuttle Program Signs Off (caterpickles.com)
- Famed Fossil isn’t a bird at all (AP news)
What are you thinking?