Hey everyone! Did you see any of the amazing footage of that fireball over Spain and Portugal this morning? Wondering what it was?

Here’s a little thread for your Sunday reading. Asteroid (rock and metal hunks of would-be worlds) hit Earth all the time, but some of them (a meter and bigger) are large enough to burn up quite furiously in the atmosphere. All that compressed, heated gas is great at cracking these open explosively.

☄️It’s true! NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has brought back 121 grams of ancient matter from an asteroid named Bennu. It cost of $1.2 billion. But what it can tell us about the dawn of the solar system, and the creation of life itself, is priceless.

A 🧵on the key findings so far:

https://twitter.com/laurahelmuth/status/1773708451266404545

So far, the team have looked at maybe 1% of the sample. But already, huge clues as to the journey Bennu has been on for the past 4.6 billion years have come to light, and were recently presented at the LPSC gathering in Texas.

Okay: here’s everything you need to know about the new eruption in Iceland, including what is certain, what is uncertain, and all that jazz.

(I’ve got a few weeks of book leave left, but couldn’t leave y’all hanging.)

THREAD

🧵🌋

credit: @Vedurstofan Today’s eruption is the third in a brand-new cycle that began in 2021.

These eruptions are happening in Iceland’s west, on the sparsely populated Reykjanes Peninsula.nationalgeographic.com/science/articl…

THE VALENTINE’S DAY ASTEROID SCARE

Here’s everything you need to know about asteroid 2023 DW, in one thread.

#2023DW I’m literally writing the book on planetary defense, so I know things about errant space rocks. And asteroid 2023 DW – with its small-but-not-zero chance of hitting Earth on Feb 14, 2046 is making headlines.

So: let's sort a few things out, shall we?

This new preliminary report, but Turkish scientists, gives a detailed analysis on why the Turkish quakes of Feb 6 were so lethal. Sure, the quakes were powerful; they literally tore up the ground. But that’s not the part that really got my attention… temblor.net/temblor/prelim… It’s the part on building damage.

They noticed that in the quakes, buildings were either only lightly damaged or were so severely damaged that many collapsed. Why would this be?

Turns out that many buildings either had quake-resistant features or designs, or they did not.

BREAKING: NASA’s pioneering InSight lander — Mars’s first fully-fledged robot geophysicist, one that provided the first internal map of another planet’s geologic innards — may have lost power and died. Per a NASA update: “On Dec. 18, 2022, NASA’s InSight did not respond to communications from Earth. The lander’s power has been declining for months, as expected, and it’s assumed InSight may have reached its end of operations.”

BREAKING: Indonesia’s Mount Semeru has explosively erupted, sending pyroclastic density currents — ‘avalanches’ of extremely hot gas and debris — screaming into several valleys.

Quick thread 🧵 (coming shortly): First off, let’s get rid of some common misconceptions and answer some FAQs about this eruption.

Q: Is this anything to do with the ongoing eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii?
A: Nah. Anywhere from 20 to 50 volcanoes are erupting on Earth at the same time.

Love this story. It's a fascinating bit of scientific sleuthing—but perhaps for different reasons from the one you think. 1/6

https://twitter.com/Gizmodo/status/1598440201508253696

It isn't *too* surprising that Mars has been hit by large asteroids. The identification of big impact craters and megatsunami deposits on Mars is very cool, and it has previously been suggested (here's me, from 2019) 2/6: nytimes.com/2019/07/30/sci…

BREAKING: The Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa has begun erupting, with lava currently confined to the summit. It’s the first eruption at the volcano since 1984.

This situation could evolve in a number of ways.

Thread! 🧵

https://twitter.com/usgsvolcanoes/status/1597165287899811840

There's a lot going on here, and a lot that could or could not happen, but first and foremost, follow @USGSVolcanoes for official updates. As usual, I'm hoping to write up a @NatGeo explainer on the sitch, but my editor is (understandably) not awake yet. Standby!

Okay, so:

Hello everyone! The world can be a frightening place, and sometimes things from space can seem a little scary too.

But tonight, I want to share with you a little story about asteroid 2022 WJ1—and how its detection may save future lives. ☄️

Thread! 🧵 This past Saturday, long after the sun had set, David Rankin was on station at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, scanning the stars for things shifting suspiciously through the deep and beautiful dark.

Fascinating recent findings on Tonga’s volcanic explosion back in January! A volcano that’s weirdly intact in some ways but whose underwater surroundings were *obliterated* by staggering powerful pyroclastic density currents.

https://twitter.com/niwa_nz/status/1594483275493359616

I didn’t have time to write about these findings (book stuff still ongoing), but I wrote a bunch of pieces on the event earlier this year, including this one (and one of my favourite articles to date) for @QuantaMagazine:

https://twitter.com/SquigglyVolcano/status/1514244497751908367

🌋🇮🇸ICELAND'S NEW ERUPTION: While waiting for key info to come in, here's a little FAQ for anyone wondering what's happening right now.

Thread, which I will type as quickly as I can! 🧵 Q: Where is this eruption taking place?

A: The Reykjanes Peninsula, in Iceland's SW. Swaths of this are sparsely populated, but there are a few towns (like Grindavik) nearby. The precise location of the eruption is tbc, but I suspect it's close to last year's eruption.

So: a volcanic island in the Kingdom of Tonga's archipelago created a *huge* explosion today, accompanied by moderate tsunami for the region and a tsunami advisory for places as far as the Pacific Northwest.

Want to know what's going on? A thread and FAQ:

https://twitter.com/SlushyWx/status/1482231875049512960

I'll be very surprised if I don't end up writing about parts of this eruption in one of my usual outlets or two this week, so standby for those if you want more detail/interviews with expert voices. For now, here's a summary of everything you need to know about what's going down.

In 1935, the US military dropped 3.6 tons of explosives on Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on Earth. And in 1992, engineers blew a hole in Mount Etna with 7.7 tons of dynamite.

Their aim: to divert the flow of deadly lava.

Did it work?

Me, for @NatGeo nationalgeographic.com/science/articl… First off, this came about thanks to a little side note in my upcoming book, SUPER VOLCANOES—which, by the way, has got some lovely reviews and is out in the US next week! Preorders mean a lot, so if you fancy a copy, click here: amazon.com/Super-Volcanoe…

Honoured to once again appear on SciShortform’s roundup of the best un-lengthy science journalist of the past half year! Thrilled that, this time, I have two Top Picks! Thanks muchly to @CatalyticRxn et al.

https://twitter.com/scishortform/status/1453013045102383123

The first, a Top Pick for a Single Study Deep-Dive, was this one for @nytimes: nytimes.com/2021/01/23/sci…

Okay—an eruption has begun at La Palma, the most northwesterly island in the Canary Island archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. It was announced (somewhat amusingly) in All Caps by @involcan just moments ago.

So: should we be worried? A thread, by me.

https://twitter.com/involcan/status/1439599283733413888

La Palma, an island not far off the shoes of Morocco, is administered by Spain. It's also one made of volcanoes—two large ones, specifically, an older northern one and a younger southern one. The younger one, Cumbre Vieja (CV), is known to be very active. volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn…

Okay, I've resisted long enough: it looks certain that that big explosion in the Caspian Sea wasn't a ruptured oil or gas pipeline or a rig fire, but the paroxysmal eruption of a mud volcano.

What is a mud volcano, I hear you ask? Let me help out.

THREAD TIME! *klaxon noises*

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1411762188721790979

First, let me say that this thread partly aims to amplify this excellent detective story by @CriticalStress_, while being informed by others, including @Chmee2. But I hope I can provide some more info too for those coming at this afresh.

https://twitter.com/CriticalStress_/status/1411839007823056897

So...the eruption of Nyiragongo on Saturday may have been short-lived, but as the heightened seismic activity in the region and the evacuation order for part of the city of Goma makes clear, something's still happening. But what?

A short thread... france24.com/en/africa/2021… First off: it's important to remember that I'm a science journalist. I trained as a volcanologist, but my job is to report on things like volcanic activity by talking to scientists and write up stories based on that. I'm one step removed from the real-time events. 2/x

NEW: This weekend's eruption could have been worse, but it doesn't change the fact that Nyiragongo remains one of Africa's most dangerous volcanoes—partly because of its exotic lava, partly because of complex sociological factors.

Me for @NatGeo + thread! nationalgeographic.com/science/articl… The oddly small eruption this weekend didn't reach the populous city of Goma, in the DRC. But it hit 17 villages, cut off water and electricity supplies, took out a school and destroyed hundreds of homes. 15 people have been confirmed dead at the time of writing.

1/x

Nyiragongo is no joke. It’s arguably one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the entire continent, and a nightmare for those in the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda.

A brief thread... 1/x

https://twitter.com/Melaniegouby/status/1396152950372933633

Nyiragongo is a mountainous volcano born of the East African Rift, the expanse of land in the region that’s slowly being pulled apart and will, perhaps, one day (20 million years for now) produce the planet’s youngest ocean. That’s super cool, eh?

2/x

Long ago, Mars made giant volcanoes that towered over Everest and erupted lava flows that could bury entire nations.

But those days are over. Today, Mars is old, cold and dead. It will never erupt again. Right?

Wrong.

Me, for @QuantaMagazine + thread! quantamagazine.org/mars-rumbles-r… We've often been taught that Mars is a dead world. Billions of years ago, it made volcanoes and volcanic provinces so massive that one of them actually tipped the planet over by 20 degrees - an incredible thought that I tell everyone I know whenever I get the chance. 1/x