Tag Archive for 'Planet'

Hue et al. discovered faint aurora features likely triggered by charged particles coming from the edge of Jupiter’s massive magnetosphere; this occurrence, shown in the false color series of images recorded 30 seconds apart (red panels), displays the characteristically ring-like emissions, expanding rapidly over time. Image credit: NASA / SWRI / JPL-Caltech / V. Hue / G.R. Gladstone / B. Bonfond.

Juno Spots Faint Auroral Rings on Jupiter

Mar 30, 2021 by News Staff

Planetary scientists using data from the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft have discovered expanding emission circles of ultraviolet...

This image shows an artist’s impression of winds in Jupiter’s stratosphere near the planet’s south pole, with the blue lines representing wind speeds; these lines are superimposed on a real image of Jupiter, taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada / NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

ALMA Detects Strong Winds in Stratosphere of Jupiter

Mar 25, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed incredibly powerful winds — with speeds of up to 1,450 kmh...

Hubble images of Saturn taken in 2018, 2019, and 2020 as the planet’s northern hemisphere summer transitions to fall. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / A. Simon / R. Roth.

Hubble Sees Midsummer Atmospheric Changes in Northern Hemisphere of Saturn

Mar 19, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed Saturn, the second largest planet in our Solar System, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, just after...

Hernández-Bernal et al. reveal the daily and seasonal behavior of the AMEC cloud, using new observations from the Visual Monitoring Camera on ESA’s Mars Express, along with data from other Mars orbiters. Image credit: ESA.

Martian Orbiters Observe Extremely Elongated Cloud over Arsia Mons Volcano

Mar 19, 2021 by News Staff

In September and October 2018, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter observed a spectacular water ice cloud — named the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC)...

An illustration of early Earth, as it would have looked around 4 billion years ago. Image credit: Lucy Entwisle.

Lightning Strikes Played Role in Creating Prebiotic Phosphorus on Early Earth, Study Suggests

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

Phosphorus is one of the key elements for life, involved in biomolecules such as DNA, RNA, phospholipids, and adenosine triphosphate. Phosphide minerals...

This illustration depicts ultraviolet polar aurorae on Jupiter and Earth. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / UVS / STScI / MODIS / WIC / IMAGE / University of Liège.

Jupiter’s Dawn Storms are Remarkably Similar to Earth’s Auroral Substorms

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

Dawn storms consist of short-lived but intense brightening and broadening of Jupiter’s main auroral oval near where the atmosphere emerges from darkness...

The map of Tharsis region of Mars from the Pocket Atlas of Mars 36. Image credit: NASA / JPL / GSFC / ESA / DLR / FU / H. Hargitai.

Planetary Scientists Create Pocket Atlas of Mars

Mar 17, 2021 by News Staff

The 84-page atlas of Mars, currently available in English, Hungarian and Czech, was developed as a part of a public outreach project supported by the Europlanet...

Computer model of the Antikythera Mechanism’s display: in the center, the dome of the Earth, the phase of the Moon and its position in the Zodiac -- then rings for Mercury, Venus, true Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Date, with ‘little sphere’ markers and smaller markers for oppositions. Scale marks and index letters for the synodic cycles of the planets are inscribed on the planet rings. Surrounding these, the Zodiac and the Egyptian Calendar. The true Sun ring has a ‘little golden sphere’ with ‘pointer.’ When the Moon and Sun pointers coincide, the Moon sphere shows black for New Moon; when the pointers are on opposite sides, the Moon sphere shows white for Full Moon. The Head of the Dragon Hand shows the ascending lunar node; the Tail the descending node. Small triangles on the true Sun ring, near the pointer, show wider and narrower eclipse limits. Eclipses are possible if the Dragon Hand is within these limits. When the Moon pointer is before the Head of the Dragon, the Moon is South of the node; after, it is North of the node -- conversely for the descending node. A Date pointer is attached to a narrow date ring, showing the date in the Egyptian Calendar. Image credit: Freeth et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84310-w.

Scientists Step Closer to Understanding Full Capabilities of Antikythera Mechanism

Mar 15, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers from University College London and the Cyprus Institute’s Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center has...

This mosaic (upper right) shows a close-up view of the rock target named ‘Yeehgo’ from the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. The component images were taken by SuperCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) on March 7, 2021. To be compatible with the rover’s software, ‘Yeehgo’ is an alternative spelling of ‘Yéigo,’ the Navajo word for diligent. The target is 3.325 m (10.9 feet) from the rover. Each of the two images in the mosaic shows a field of view 6.2 cm (2.5 inches) in diameter. Perseverance’s Navigation Cameras (Nav Cam) and Mastcam-Z instrument also took images of that area at the same time to provide multiple views of the rock target. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / CNRS / ASU / MSSS.

Perseverance Records Sound of Its Rock-Zapping Laser Instrument

Mar 12, 2021 by News Staff

Early data from the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover — including the first audio of laser zaps on another planet — are...

The inner core of our planet has an inner core of its own, with crystals aligned in a different direction. Image credit: Lachina Publishing Services.

Geoscientists Confirm Existence of Earth’s Innermost Inner Core

Mar 8, 2021 by News Staff

Earth’s inner core has an inner core of its own and its distinct properties may point to a dramatic event in the history of our planet, according to...

This image was captured while Perseverance drove on Mars for the first time on March 4, 2021. One of Perseverance’s Hazard Avoidance Cameras (Hazcams) captured this image as the rover completed a short traverse and turn from its landing site in Jezero Crater. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Successfully Performs Its First Drive on Mars

Mar 8, 2021 by News Staff

On March 4, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover covered 6.5 m (21.3 feet) across the Martian landscape. This image was captured while Perseverance drove...

Global distribution of production rates of radiolytic hydrogen and radiolytic oxidants in marine sediment; rates are expressed in mol electron equivalents/cm2/year; in electron equivalents, water radiolysis produces hydrogen and oxidized chemicals at equal rates; although abyssal clay has a volumetric radiolytic production rate an order of magnitude higher than the volumetric rate for continental-margin sediment types, the sediment layer that blankets open-ocean regions is much thinner and consequently has much lower vertically integrated radiolytic production than the sediment of continental margins. Image credit: Sauvage et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21218-z.

Subseafloor Microbial Communities Survive on Products of Radioactive Process, Study Suggests

Mar 3, 2021 by News Staff

Radionuclides are ubiquitous in sediment and rock, where their decay leads to the production of hydrogen and oxidized chemicals via radiolysis of water;...

Researchers Observe ‘Space Hurricane’ in Earth’s Ionosphere

Mar 2, 2021 by News Staff

Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are well known; however, disturbances resembling hurricanes had never before been detected in the upper atmosphere. An...

Part of the first 360-degree panorama taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / ASU.

Perseverance Snaps 360-Degree Panorama of Mars

Feb 25, 2021 by News Staff

The 360-degree panorama (high-resolution .tif image) was created from 142 individual images taken on February 21, 2021 (Sol 3) using Mastcam-Z, a mast-mounted...

When flying past Venus on July 11, 2020, the WISPR instrument onboard Parker Solar Probe detected a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow. The prominent dark feature in the center of the image is Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the Venusian surface. Bright streaks in WISPR, such as the ones seen here, are typically caused by a combination of cosmic rays, sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and particles of material expelled from the spacecraft’s structures after impact with those dust grains. The number of streaks varies along the orbit or when the spacecraft is traveling at different speeds, and scientists are still in discussion about the specific origins of the streaks here. The dark spot appearing on the lower portion of Venus is an artifact from the WISPR instrument. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Naval Research Laboratory / Guillermo Stenborg / Brendan Gallagher.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Returns Spectacular Image of Venus

Feb 25, 2021 by News Staff

The new image was taken by the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) during the close flyby of the second planet from the Sun on July 11, 2020. When...

An artist’s impression of a water-world exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Aquatic Planets are Common in Our Milky Way Galaxy, Study Suggests

Feb 23, 2021 by News Staff

In a study published in the journal Science Advances, a team of European astronomers shows that water can be delivered to a terrestrial planet in the form...

Perseverance’s Navcams captured this view of the rover’s deck on February 20, 2021. This view provides a good look at PIXL (the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), one of the instruments on the rover’s stowed arm. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Team Releases New Images, Video of Rover’s Landing

Feb 22, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured footage of its rover landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. The footage was captured by several...

This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on February 18, 2021. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Sends Back Its First Color Photos, Status Reports from Mars

Feb 22, 2021 by News Staff

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have received new images from the Perseverance rover as well as health reports from both the...

Perseverance’s first image (colorized) from Jezero Crater, Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Successfully Lands on Mars

Feb 19, 2021 by News Staff

After a 203-day journey, NASA’s car-sized Perseverance rover successfully landed in Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. Confirmation of the successful...

This illustration shows NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover as it approaches Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Land on Mars Today: Watch Live

Feb 18, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover, with the Ingenuity helicopter attached to its belly, is on target to touch down gently in Jezero Crater on Mars around 3:55...

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