Space Asteroid Launch

The Rarest Asteroid, a Space Force Expansion, and Why Adolescents Forget

Researchers have finally identified the type of asteroid responsible for the Chicxulub impact sixty-six million years ago — the event that ended the Cretaceous period and eliminated roughly 75 percent of Earth's species, including non-avian dinosaurs. Using nickel isotope analysis of the ancient clay layer preserved at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, scientists have determined the impactor was a CO chondrite. CO chondrites represent less than one percent of all meteorites found on Earth, making them among the rarest classes of space rock in the solar system. The identification required reading the chemical fingerprint of an asteroid from trace materials preserved in sedimentary clay for 66 million years.

The finding resolves a decades-long debate among impact scientists about the Chicxulub impactor's composition and provides new understanding of where in the solar system it likely originated — CO chondrites are thought to form in the outer regions of the asteroid belt. It may also improve risk models for assessing different asteroid populations.

The Space Force has tripled the ceiling on its NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 launch contracts, expanding from roughly 5.6 billion dollars to 17 billion dollars, with the additional 11.4 billion covering seven launch providers including SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin, along with several newer entrants. The expansion reflects Pentagon recognition that military satellite launch demand — for surveillance, communications, and missile defense — is growing substantially faster than original projections. With F-35s deploying to the Middle East and multi-front threats being managed simultaneously, the ability to rapidly task and retask reconnaissance satellites is a direct combat multiplier.

Neuroscience produced a finding with broad implications: researchers studying mice found that protective structures in a key memory region — perineuronal nets in the hippocampus — thin and diminish during late adolescence before rebuilding. This temporary structural window makes earlier memories harder to retrieve and may help explain childhood amnesia, the near-universal inability to recall memories from before age three or four. If the perineuronal net thinning during adolescence is a normal developmental phase, it suggests a potential mechanism window during which certain early trauma memories become more accessible — with possible implications for psychiatric treatment of PTSD rooted in childhood experiences.

Michigan has shut down concerts, courts, and schools due to wildfire smoke — a Great Lakes state not historically associated with such events. The closures reflect both the increasing frequency of large fires in the western United States and Canada, and atmospheric transport patterns that carry smoke thousands of miles eastward. Flash flooding, tornado watches, and ground stops at all three New York-area airports on the day of the World Cup final — with NORAD jets also scrambled over the city due to an airspace incursion — illustrate how climate-driven precipitation intensification has made the New York metropolitan area vulnerable to disruptions that once affected only specific low-lying neighborhoods.