17+ hour, 28+ min ago   (277+ words) A small iguanodontian fossil from Japan adds evidence that Late Cretaceous coastal ecosystems supported dinosaurs of widely different body sizes. Iguanodontians were widespread plant-eating dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic through the Late Cretaceous. Their movement between Asia, North…...

6+ day, 9+ min ago   (948+ words) An analysis of 75 meteorite falls identified seven distinct processes that occur as space rocks melt, break apart, and slow down before reaching the ground. Their results show that melting and fragmentation, rather than evaporation alone, determine how these objects shed…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (340+ words) NASA’s new Mars helicopter rotors survived supersonic testing, boosting lift by 30% and paving the way for heavier, more capable aerial explorers on the Red Planet. During Ingenuity’s 72 flights on Mars, engineers kept the helicopter’s composite-skinned foam rotor blades below 2,700 rpm…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago   (1092+ words) Rocky planets may have gotten their start far earlier than anyone expected, almost as soon as the first stars gave the universe the ingredients to build them. New computer simulations suggest that planetesimals, the solid precursors of planets like Earth,…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago   (487+ words) Ancient microbes appear to have used molybdenum as far back as 3.7 billion years ago, despite the metal being scarce in Earth’s early oceans. Scientists funded by NASA have found that organisms living on Earth more than 3 billion years ago were…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago   (352+ words) A new study suggests the atmosphere may retain enough information for weather to remain theoretically predictable for roughly 129 days under ideal conditions. How far into the future could weather ever be predicted, even if forecasters knew the atmosphere perfectly? Meteorologists…...