Last Week in Science: Diamonds from Outer Space, Super Volcanoes, and more!

Breathtaking discoveries and mind-blowing inventions happen around the world every day but many go unnoticed by the public at large. Here is "Last Week in Science", of what's happening in the world around us? A first article I'm writing of this kind as I keep a track of all research and discoveries from around the world. Here is my top 5 pick, explained short and brief;

The Destroyed Planet from the Past

The year 2008 may be known for a lot of different things but this one incident was quite forgotten until now. On October 7th, 2008, a seemingly unsuspicious space rock crashed into Earth, and the shattered pieces landed in the Nubian desert in Africa. When these pieces were collected, humans were in for a surprise. What they found were diamonds, literally. Diamonds from outer space. Now about 10 years later, scientists have a possible explanation of where these diamonds could have come from. They could have been a part of another ancient planet of the early solar system which now no longer exists. This destroyed planet is estimated to be anywhere between the size of mercury or venus. The mysteries of outer space are quite baffling. The more we discover, the more is there to know. The more we answer, twice as many new questions pop up, and this discovery is no less any different.

The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway:

Another space update from last week, NASA made a new announcement, to build what would be called a 'Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway'. This unique space station is planned to be used for deep space missions of the future by astronauts.One of the primary goals is to get 4 astronauts orbit the moon. This advance could be one of the major steps for progress before mankind's visionary missions to Mars. Surely, this is the era of space exploration.

The Yellowstone Supervolcano and Why you should care?

This is a more interesting update from the Scientific community. So the Yellow Stone Supervolcano is located in the western United States. What's so special about it? It's a super volcano and its eruption could be truly catastrophic. (Read: There is a possibility that the whole of United States could cover in ashes if it erupts) Research is being undertaken to understand the behavior of this structure but as of today, we do not have any accurate details as to when it will erupt. Some claim that is due to erupt anytime now and some others claim that the probability of such an event is rare. The last time it erupted was estimated to be about 70,000 years ago. Only time will answer, what's to come by.

How to Stretch the Hardest Material on Earth?

We have just seen about diamonds from outer space. Now at the other end of the Earth, Scientists are up to something crazier. Did you ever think that the day would come when you'd be seeing diamond being stretched like a rubber? However, it is not exactly like how you are imagining it right now but that day did come. In a recent research published by the team led by Dao Ming from MIT, it was shown that Diamond, in the form of 'Needles', about a 100 nm thick or so (Which is very very thin), could stretch up to 9% of their original size. A fitting name was given to them, 'The Diamond NanoNeedles'. So why is this important? Anyone who has ever seen a diamond would know what an impossible feat it is to stretch a material like that. The main takeaway here is the fact that many things that seem impossible at the larger scales, like macroscopic or even microscopic could be possible when you scale down the system to the nanometer scale. Nanotechnology is an interesting area of study for many such reasons and anomalous behavior of matter.

Spooky Deep Sea Creature Discovered

We have seen updates in Space Sciences, in Material Sciences, and also in Earth Sciences. Now here is one interesting discovery of a life form never seen before. As much as it is there to explore the outer space, so much there is to explore here on earth itself with new species being discovered constantly. Have you ever seen this animal? Here is a video of the creature in action!

Life on Earth evolved into many forms and some of the weirdest and spookiest of them are found in the deep sea, far away from human reach and some of the unexplored places on Earth. This new species, termed as twisted squid was discovered last week in the Gulf of Mexico at about 850 meters below the sea level.

The key takeaway from this discovery for me would be the idea that there is always something out there, just waiting to be discovered, something beyond the scope of human imagination.

Stay tuned for next article of "Last week in Science" Any suggestions or ideas to improve this series is welcome!

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(This article was republished on Research Nest's blog on Medium here)