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Categories: Paleontology: Dinosaurs, Space: Exploration

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Researchers have conducted a new analysis of the origins of 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs -- the group which includes iconic species such as Triceratops -- and found that they likely evolved from a group of animals known as silesaurs, which were first identified two decades ago.

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows off its capabilities closer to home with its first image of Neptune. Not only has Webb captured the clearest view of this distant planet's rings in more than 30 years, but its cameras reveal the ice giant in a whole new light.

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An international team of researchers with NASA's InSight mission located four new craters created by impacts on the surface of Mars. Using data from a seismometer and visuals acquired from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the team successfully calculated and confirmed the impact locations. Researchers have now captured the dynamics of an impact on Mars.

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The search for extraterrestrial life just got more interesting as a team of scientists has discovered new evidence for a key building block for life in the subsurface ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus. New modeling indicates that Enceladus's ocean should be relatively rich in dissolved phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life.

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It's been known for decades that astronauts' immune systems become suppressed in space, leaving them vulnerable to disease, but the exact mechanisms of immune dysfunction have remained a mystery -- now a Cornell undergraduate has found a potential solution.

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Though Mars is a frozen desert today, scientists have shown that Mars contains evidence of ancient lakes that existed billions of years ago, which could contain evidence for ancient life and climate conditions on the red planet. Through a meta-analysis of years of satellite data that shows evidence for lakes on Mars, a geologist has proposed that scientists might have dramatically underestimated the number of ancient Martian lakes that once existed.

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NASA's Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock-core samples from features within an area long considered by scientists to be a top prospect for finding signs of ancient microbial life on Mars.

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Scientists propose a lost moon of Saturn, which they call Chrysalis, pulled on the planet until it ripped apart, forming rings and contributing to Saturn's tilt.

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Researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand's living tuatara. A team of scientists describe the new species Opisthiamimus gregori, which once inhabited Jurassic North America about 150 million years ago alongside dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Allosaurus. In life, this prehistoric reptile would have been about 16 centimeters (about 6 inches) from nose to tail -- and would fit curled up in the palm of an adult human hand -- and likely survived on a diet of insects and other invertebrates.

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Researchers present the most precise test yet of the weak equivalence principle, a key component of the theory of general relativity. The report describes the final results from the MICROSCOPE mission, which tested the principle by measuring accelerations of free-falling objects in a satellite orbiting Earth.

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Determining what killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period has long been the topic of debate, as scientists set out to determine what caused the five mass extinction events that reshaped life on planet Earth in a geological instant. Some scientists argue that comets or asteroids that crashed into Earth were the most likely agents of mass destruction, while others argue that large volcanic eruptions were the cause. A new study reports that volcanic activity appears to have been the key driver of mass extinctions.

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A small amount of simulated crushed Martian rock mixed with a titanium alloy made a stronger, high-performance material in a 3D-printing process that could one day be used on Mars to make tools or rocket parts. The parts were made by researchers with as little as 5% up to 100% Martian regolith, a black powdery substance meant to mimic the rocky, inorganic material found on the surface of the red planet. While the parts with 5% Martian regolith were strong, the 100% regolith parts proved brittle and cracked easily. Still, even high-Martian content materials would be useful in making coatings to protect equipment from rust or radiation damage.

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Astronomers have used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system. The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable. The image shows how Webb's powerful infrared gaze can easily capture worlds beyond our solar system, pointing the way to future observations that will reveal more information than ever before about exoplanets.

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With an eye toward a possible return mission years in the future, Cornell University astronomers have shown how smooth terrains -- a good place to land a spacecraft and to scoop up samples -- evolve on the icy world of comets.

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The MOXIE experiment has now produced oxygen on Mars. It is the first demonstration of in-situ resource utilization on the Red Planet, and a key step in the goal of sending humans on a Martian mission.

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NASA's MAVEN and the United Arab Emirates' EMM missions have released joint observations of dynamic proton aurora events at Mars. By combining the observations, scientists determined that what they were seeing was essentially a map of where the solar wind was raining down onto the planet, opening new avenues for understanding the Martian atmosphere.

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A new study could lead to ongoing health monitoring of astronauts to assess possible health risks and prevent disease progression.

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An international team of paleontologists has discovered and named a new, early dinosaur. The skeleton -- incredibly, mostly intact -- was found over the course of two digs, in 2017 and 2019.

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The accepted view of Mars is red rocks and craters as far as the eye can see. That's much what scientists expected when they landed the rover Perseverance in the Jezero Crater, a spot chosen partly for the crater's history as a lake and as part of a rich river system, back when Mars had liquid water, air and a magnetic field. What the rover found once on the ground was startling: Rather than the expected sedimentary rocks -- washed in by rivers and accumulated on the lake bottom -- many of the rocks are volcanic in nature. Specifically, they are composed of large grains of olivine, the muddier less-gemlike version of peridot that tints so many of Hawaii's beaches dark green.

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NASA's Perseverance landed on Mars in February 2021 and has been gathering data on the planet's geology and climate and searching for signs of ancient life. The rover's subsurface radar experiment has returned images showing unexpected variations in rock layers beneath the Jezero crater. The variations could indicate past lava flows or possibly a river delta even older than the one currently being explored on the crater floor.