"How Asteroid Strikes Preserved Signs of Ancient Life " Topic
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Tango01 | 23 Apr 2014 9:46 p.m. PST |
"When an asteroid plows into the Earth, it destroys pretty much everything in its path. But new research has shown that glass created during a searing asteroid impact can actually trap microscopic signs of life for millions of years, providing scientists with a snapshot of the biology in the area just before and after the strike. At a site in Argentina, researchers found bits of plant material embedded in a type of glass formed during meteorite strikes. Because the glass contains insight into the flora in the area just before the crash — similar to how amber traps and preserves plants and bugs — the researchers are calling it "impact amber." Meanwhile, a separate group has spotted bizarre tubular features in meteorite-created glass at a crater in Germany that tells them about a microbial ecosystem that lived in the residual heat generated by an asteroid hitting the ground.Both results could help us in the search for life on other worlds.
In Argentina, scientists looked at the glass produced by seven different asteroid impacts occurring between 6,000 and 9.2 million years ago. "We kept seeing these things embedded in the glass, some of which looked like scratch marks and others that looked like twigs," said planetary scientist Peter Schultz of Brown University, co-author of one of the two new papers that appeared April 15 in Geology
" Full article here. link Amicalement Armand |
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