Tag Archive for 'Ice'

This artist’s concept of shows the main-belt comet 238P/Read sublimating -- its water ice vaporizing as its orbit approaches the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA.

Webb Detects Water Vapor around Main-Belt Comet 238P/Read

May 16, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The new observations from the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope show that the main-belt comet 238P/Read...

This composite image shows the Saturn Lyman-alpha bulge, an emission from hydrogen which is a persistent and unexpected excess detected by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, NASA’s Cassini probe, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope between 1980 and 2017. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Lotfi Ben-Jaffel, IAP & LPL.

Saturn’s Rings are Heating Gas Giant’s Upper Atmosphere, Astronomers Say

Mar 30, 2023 by News Staff

The most feasible explanation is that icy ring particles raining down onto Saturn’s atmosphere cause this heating, according to a team of astronomers...

An artist’s concept of a Neptunian Trojan asteroid. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI / C. Fuentes, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Neptunian Trojan Asteroids Exist in Broad Spectrum of Red Color, Astronomers Find

Mar 29, 2023 by News Staff

Neptunian Trojans are trans-Neptunian objects in 1:1 mean-motion resonance with the ice giant Neptune. These asteroids are generally thought to have been...

A large stream of meltwater (about 5 to 10 m in width) emerges from an upstream supraglacial lake in the Greenlandic ice on July, 21 2012. The darker shapes are minor streams covered by cryoconite (a mix of dust particles, soot, meteorite dust and organic material) which covers the ice sheet. Cracks cutting through the streams are visible. Along these cracks water can flow through, enlarging them and, eventually, generating moulins that can deliver meltwater through the ice. Image credit: M. Tedesco / CCNY / NASA ICE.

Greenland Ice Sheet Very Close to Melting Point of No Return, Scientists Say

Mar 28, 2023 by News Staff

With ongoing carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the atmosphere of Earth heats up, which has dramatic consequences for the ice sheets....

An artist’s impression of the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI.

Scientists Explain Why Jupiter’s and Saturn’s Icy Moons Have Extreme Radar Properties

Mar 23, 2023 by News Staff

The radar properties of icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn commonly differ by more than an order of magnitude from those of rocky planets because of...

This artist’s impression shows ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object discovered in our Solar System. Recent observations show that the object is moving faster than predicted while leaving the Solar System. Astronomers assume that venting material from its surface due to solar heating is responsible for this behavior. This outgassing can be seen in this artist’s impression as a subtle cloud being ejected from the side of the object facing the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Offer New Explanation for Interstellar Object Oumuamua’s Unusual Acceleration

Mar 23, 2023 by News Staff

The previously unreconciled acceleration of 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, a strange object of extrasolar origin discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS...

A relict glacier near Mars’ equator. Image credit: Lee et al. / LPSC 2023 / NASA.

Relict Glacier Spotted near Martian Equator

Mar 20, 2023 by News Staff

A so-called light-toned deposit (LTD) in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus, about 160 km (99.4 miles) north-west of Oudemans crater near Mars’ equator, presents...

V883 Orionis is a unique protostar whose temperature is just hot enough that the water in its circumstellar disk has turned to gas, making it possible for radio astronomers to trace the water’s origins. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Deuterium-Enriched Water Ties Protoplanetary Disks to Comets and Protostars

Mar 9, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected gaseous water in the planet-forming disk around V883 Orionis, a...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

Planetary Scientists Create Two New Forms of Extraterrestrial Ice

Feb 21, 2023 by News Staff

University of Washington researcher Baptiste Journaux and colleagues believe the newly-created substances could form at the surface and bottom of deep...

A jar with the medium-density amorphous ice inside, with steel balls and liquid nitrogen. Image credit: Rosu-Finsen et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abq2105.

New Form of Ice Discovered: Medium-Density Amorphous Ice

Feb 3, 2023 by News Staff

Water ice has many crystalline phases, along with a few amorphous structures. The complex structural diagram is important to understand because of the...

This illustration shows what Chariklo and its rings could look like, based on our current understanding. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Webb Detects Water Ice on Chariklo, Spies Its Ring System

Jan 30, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have captured the reflectance spectrum of the double-ringed centaur 10199 Chariklo and observed...

This Webb image features the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light-years away in the constellation of Chamaeleon; the cold, wispy cloud material (blue, center) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left); the light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / M. Zamani, ESA & Webb / F. Sun, Steward Observatory / Z. Smith, Open University / Ice Age ERS Team.

Webb Reveals Rich Composition of Interstellar Molecular Cloud Ices

Jan 23, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected water ice as well as frozen forms of carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, methane, and...

This map illustrates the geography of Beringia, the land bridge that formed between North America and Asia during the last glaciation. Humans crossed Beringia from Asia to North America during the glacial period depicted on this map. Lakes and drainages have been reconstructed to provide a better perspective on the environment of the land mass according to bathymetric data having a grid spacing of 1 km (100 m for Norton Sound). Some of the lake basins are shallow and may have been wetlands rather than open water bodies. Image credit: J.D. Bond / Yukon Geological Survey / Government of Yukon.

Bering Land Bridge Remained Flooded Until 35,700 Years Ago, Scientists Say

Dec 27, 2022 by News Staff

In new research, led by the University of California, Santa Cruz and Princeton University, scientists reconstructed the history of sea level at the Bering...

The February 2021 fireball captured by the Global Fireball Observatory camera at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada. Image credit: University of Alberta.

Meteoroid from Oort Cloud Was Made of Rock, Not Ice, Scientists Say

Dec 23, 2022 by News Staff

This decimeter-sized (2 kg) rocky meteoroid entered the atmosphere of our planet about 100 km north of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada at 13:23:17 UTC...

Boulder-size blocks of water ice can be seen around the rim of an impact crater in the Amazonis Planitia regionon Mars, as viewed by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Meteoroid Impact on Mars Excavated Large Chunks of Water Ice, Planetary Scientists Say

Oct 28, 2022 by News Staff

On December 24, 2021, NASA’s InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake with a distinct signature rippling across the surface of Mars. In a pair...

Review of the mechanisms proposed in the literature to explain the emplacement of liquid reservoirs invoked to correspond to a variety of geological features at Europa’s surface. Image credit: Lesage et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ac75bf.

Shallow Lakes in Europa’s Crust Could Erupt, Planetary Scientists Say

Oct 13, 2022 by News Staff

In the search for life beyond Earth, subsurface bodies of water in the outer Solar System are some of the most important targets. That’s why NASA and...

These images shows Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa with Jupiter in the background. Image credit: ESO / King & Fletcher / NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / OPAL Team.

SPHERE Helps Determine Surface Compositions of Europa and Ganymede

Oct 10, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have imaged Jupiter’s...

This image of a sun pillar was captured by ESA-sponsored medical doctor Hannes Hagson. Image credit: ESA / IPEV / PNRA / H. Hagson.

Antarctic Researcher Spots Rare Optical Phenomenon: Sun Pillar

Sep 26, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A light pillar is an optical phenomenon where a column of light can be seen emanating from a light source. If the light comes from the Sun, the phenomenon...

An artist’s illustration of a protoplanetary disk; the insert displays carbon monoxide molecules in the ice phase. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

Astronomers Solve Mystery of Missing Gaseous Carbon Monoxide in Protoplanetary Disks

Aug 23, 2022 by News Staff

Carbon monoxide is ultra-bright and extremely common in protoplanetary disks, making it a prime target for astronomers. But a huge chunk of carbon monoxide...

Study Sheds More Light on Icy Shells of Europa and Other Ocean Worlds

Aug 15, 2022 by News Staff

The underwater snow is known to form in low temperature environments, e.g., beneath ice shelves, on Earth. New research led by University of Texas at Austin...

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