Tag Archive for 'Planet'

This image captured by NASA’s Juno orbiter shows a multitude of magnificent, swirling clouds in Jupiter’s North North Temperate Belt. The image was taken at 4:58 p.m. EDT on October 29, 2018 (1:58 p.m. PDT) as the spacecraft performed its 16th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 4,400 miles (7,000 km) from the planet’s cloud tops, at a latitude of approximately 40 degrees north. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt / Sean Doran.

Juno Takes Closer Look at Jupiter’s Magnificent, Swirling Clouds

Nov 13, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft made its 16th close science flyby of Jupiter on October 29, 2018 and captured stunning images of the gas giant. This image captured...

Photograph of the 5,000th sunrise over Mars captured by NASA’s Opportunity rover. Image credit: NASA.

Researchers Capture Sound of Martian Sunrise

Nov 9, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Exeter, UK, has created the soundtrack of the Martian sunrise captured by NASA’s...

Three waves can be seen in this image, which is an excerpt of a JunoCam image taken on February 2, 2017, during Juno’s fourth flyby of Jupiter. The region imaged in this picture is part of the visibly dark band just north of Jupiter’s equator known as the North Equatorial Belt. Most of this belt is characterized by downwelling motions, but during the fourth flyby it had several bright areas of upwelling clouds. One of those upwelling clouds appears to be accompanied by dark regions, which are most likely shadows. The shadow associated with the center of the three waves is about 25 miles (40 km) long; from the angle of illumination, researchers deduced that the shadowed part of the wave must be around 4 miles (7 km) above the main cloud deck, with the peak of the wave probably close to 6 miles (10 km) above the main cloud deck. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam.

Juno Spots ‘Waves Trains’ in Jovian Atmosphere

Nov 6, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno orbiter has detected ‘wave trains’ — massive structures of moving air that appear like waves — in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Three...

This mosaic of images from the MDIS Narrow Angle Camera on NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft shows the impact crater Hokusai, located on Mercury at a latitude of 58°N. The crater has an impressive system of rays, which extend as much as a thousand kilometers (more than 600 miles) across the planet and are the longest that have yet been identified on Mercury. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The Great Wave that Brought Water to Mercury

Nov 1, 2018 by James Romero

The impact that formed Mercury’s spectacular 100-km (62-mile) wide Hokusai crater, named after the famous Japanese artist, who created the Great Wave...

The white, elongated cloud in the vicinity of the Arsia Mons volcano, close to the planet’s equator. Image credit: ESA / GCP / UPV / EHU Bilbao / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Spots Elongated Cloud in Martian Atmosphere

Oct 29, 2018 by News Staff

Since September 13, 2018, ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft has been observing the evolution of a water ice cloud formation hovering in the vicinity of Arsia...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Salty, Oxygenated Water on Mars Could Host Simple Aerobic Life

Oct 23, 2018 by News Staff

Caltech researcher Vlada Stamenković and co-authors calculated that if liquid water exists on the Red Planet, it could contain more oxygen than previously...

An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA.

Plate Tectonics Was Active from Earth’s Very Beginning, Study Suggests

Oct 1, 2018 by News Staff

New research overturns previous scientific beliefs that Earth’s tectonic plates were developed over the course of billions of years. An artistic conception...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ancient Mars Had Ample Chemical Energy to Support Subsurface Microbial Colonies

Sep 25, 2018 by News Staff

Mars had right conditions for subsurface life some 3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago (Noachian period), according to new research from Brown University. An...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Researchers Say the Reason Pluto Lost Its Planet Status is Not Valid

Sep 10, 2018 by News Staff

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a definition of a planet that required it to clear its orbit, or in other words, be the...

Huge Northern Polar Vortex Spotted Forming in Saturn’s Stratosphere

Sep 5, 2018 by News Staff

When NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the gas giant’s southern hemisphere was enjoying summertime, while the northern was in the...

This image of the Great Red Spot was taken on July 10, 2017, as Juno performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 8,648 miles (13,917 km) from the tops of the clouds of the planet. Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.

Scientists Find Water in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Sep 3, 2018 by News Staff

By looking from two ground-based telescopes at wavelengths sensitive to thermal radiation leaking from the depths of Jupiter’s mysterious, roiling storm...

Magnetic fields around Jupiter can overpower zonal jets that affect atmospheric circulation. Image credit: JAXA.

Magnetic Fields Impact Atmospheric Circulation of Gaseous Planets, Scientists Find

Aug 15, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Australian National University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has solved the mystery underlying Jupiter’s...

Exoplanet Hunters Create Reference Catalog of Solar System Bodies’ Light-Fingerprints

Aug 1, 2018 by News Staff

A team of astronomers at Carl Sagan Institute, Cornell University, has produced a reference catalog of spectra and geometric albedos for 19 objects that...

Mars Terraforming is Not Possible Using Currently Available Technology, Researchers Say

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

On Mars, the atmospheric pressure is around 0.6% of Earth’s. Any liquid water on the surface would very quickly evaporate or freeze. One of the challenges...

Team Zopherus of Rogers is the first-place winner in NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, Phase 3: Level 1 competition. Image credit: NASA.

NASA Awards Top Five Design Finalists in 3D Printed Martian Habitat Challenge

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

Future missions to Mars and beyond will require innovative options to shelter explorers. NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, a Centennial Challenges...

This image shows the recent observations of the planets Mars and Saturn made with Hubble. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / OPAL Team / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Mars and Saturn Photographed Near Opposition

Jul 27, 2018 by News Staff

In summer 2018 Mars and Saturn are, one after the other, in opposition to Earth. Around the time of opposition, a planet is at its closest distance to...

An artist’s impression of ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Finds Huge Reservoir of Liquid Water below Martian Surface

Jul 25, 2018 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has used radar signals bounced through underground layers of ice to find evidence of liquid water trapped below the south...

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.

NASA Unveils Radiation Maps of Europa

Jul 25, 2018 by News Staff

Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of the most compelling targets in the search for life beyond Earth. However, its water-ice surface is affected by the harsh...

On Earth, the Northern and Southern lights occur when the solar wind (electrically charged particles from the Sun) follow our planet’s geomagnetic field lines to the poles and collide with the upper atmosphere. Mars lacks a global magnetic field, so instead the solar wind piles up in front of Mars in a bow shock, which blocks charged particles from reaching the bulk of the atmosphere. However, in a process first observed by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, some solar wind protons can slip past the bow shock by first bonding with electrons from the Martian upper atmosphere to form hydrogen atoms. Because these hydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, they can pass through the bow shock and go on to create an ultraviolet proton aurora on the dayside of Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Proton Aurora Discovered on Mars

Jul 24, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft has found a new type of Martian aurora that occurs over much of the day side of the...

This close-up color image of a small-scale dust storm on Mars was acquired by the HRSC instrument on ESA’s Mars Express in April 2018. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Spots Small-Scale Dust Storm

Jul 20, 2018 by News Staff

A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows a local dust storm with a towering cloud front,...

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