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Asteroid that hit Botswana in 2018 likely came from Vesta
On June 2, 2018, a small asteroid was discovered on an impact trajectory with Earth. Eight hours later, a video camera in South Africa recorded a bright fireball over Botswana. An international team of researchers have now published their findings in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science after they tracked down the surviving meteorites deep inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in central Botswana.
“Combining the observations of the small asteroid in space with information gleaned from the meteorites shows it likely came from Vesta, second largest asteroid in our Solar System and target of NASA’s DAWN mission”, said lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center.
Published: April 21, 2021
Tokyo Tech utilizes a portion of the generous contributions made to the Tokyo Tech Fund to organize events for the wider community. One area of focus is science education support, which aims to develop intellectual creativity among elementary, middle, and high school students with the help of resources available at the Institute.
On March 7, ten elementary school students and their guardians joined an online programming workshop hosted by Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology. This year s event, the third of its kind, was made possible by the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education for Younger Generations arm of the Tokyo Tech Fund.
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New condenser makes water from air, even in hot sun
Access to clean water is a pressing issue for many people around the world. Even in areas with ample water resources, a lack of infrastructure or reliable energy means purifying that water is sometimes extremely difficult.
That’s why a water vapor condenser designed by University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers could be revolutionary. Unlike other radiative vapor condensers which can only operate at night, the new design works in direct sunlight and requires no energy input.
“Water sustainability is a global issue,” says Zongfu Yu, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW-Madison. “You can’t set out to solve the water problem without addressing energy.”
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New study investigates how life on land recovered after “The Great Dying”
Lystrosaurus: After the mass extinction, the ecosystem was unusual, with hugely common examples of the dicynodont Lystrosaurus [2,3], sometimes comprising 90% of the assemblage. Some smaller reptiles also survived, and these were preyed on by rare, water-dwelling proterosuchians [8]. Xiaochong Guo
Over the course of Earth’s history, several mass extinction events have destroyed ecosystems, including one that famously wiped out the dinosaurs. But none were as devastating as “The Great Dying,” which took place 252 million years ago during the end of the Permian period.
A new study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows in detail how life recovered in comparison to two smaller extinction events.