Tag Archive for 'Solar System'

An artist’s impression of the dwarf planet Quaoar and its ring. Quaoar’s moon Weywot is shown on the left. Image credit: ESA / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Astronomers Discover Ring around Trans-Neptunian Object Quaoar

Feb 9, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The newly-detected ring orbits at 7.4 radii from Quaoar — much further away from the object than the rings around Saturn. An artist’s impression...

$Rhoden et al. revisited New Horizons data to explore the source of cryovolcanic flows and an obvious belt of fractures on Charon. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.$

Charon’s Freezing Ocean Produced Huge Canyons on Its Surface, Modeling Study Suggests

Feb 8, 2023 by News Staff

When ocean-bearing moons begin to cool down, their oceans can freeze. As new ice accretes to the bottom of the existing ice shell, the added volume of...

An artist’s impression of an irregularly-shaped asteroid. Image credit: N. Bartmann, ESA & Webb / ESO / M. Kornmesser / S. Brunier / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org.

Webb Discovers New Asteroid in Solar System’s Main Belt

Feb 7, 2023 by News Staff

The newly-discovered asteroid is less than 230 m (755 feet) across, and orbits within the main asteroid belt, which is located between Mars and Jupiter. An...

This mosaic image taken by the Cassini spacecraft is one of the highest resolution views ever obtained of Mimas. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Mimas Has an Expanding, Young Ocean, New Research Suggests

Jan 31, 2023 by News Staff

Mimas, a small moon of Saturn, is heavily cratered and lacks the typical characteristics of an ocean-bearing moon, such as the active surface of Enceladus....

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 is an artist's impression of a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the strong gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick, Space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick / University of Cambridge.

Small Asteroid Flew Safely Past Earth This Week

Jan 27, 2023 by News Staff

A small near-Earth asteroid designated 2023 BU made its closest approach on January 26, 2023 at 7:29 p.m. EST (4:29 p.m. PST, or January 27, 2023 at 00:29...

The Tissint meteorite. Image credit: Ludovic Ferriere, Natural History Museum Vienna.

Scientists Find Various Organic Compounds in Martian Meteorite

Jan 12, 2023 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has detected abundant polyaromatic compounds, organic magnesium compounds, aliphatic branched carboxylic acids, aldehydes,...

The impacts of ozone depletion and elevated UV-B levels on the terrestrial ecosystem. Image credit: Conor Haynes-Mannering, University of Nottingham.

Ozone Layer Collapse Contributed to End-Permian Mass Extinction

Jan 9, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, paleontologists analyzed abundances of sunscreen-like chemicals in 800 fossil pollen grains from 250-million-year-old rocks in Tibet. The...

An artist’s impression of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft flying through plumes erupting from the south pole of Enceladus; these plumes are much like geysers and expel a combination of water vapor, ice grains, salts, methane and other organic molecules. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Detecting Extraterrestrial Life on Enceladus Could Be Achieved without Landing: Study

Jan 2, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus, the sixth-biggest moon of Saturn, is a top candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life in the Solar System. An artist’s impression of...

The volcano-laced surface of Jupiter’s moon Io was captured in infrared by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it flew by at a distance of was about 80,000 km (50,000 miles) on July 5, 2022. Brighter spots indicate higher temperatures in this image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / ASI / INAF / JIRAM.

Trace Gas Detection Sheds New Light on Atmospheres of Jupiter and Its Volcanic Moon Io

Dec 28, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA’s Juno spacecraft, two...

This sample of the El Ali meteorite contains two new minerals: elaliite and elkinstantonite. Image credit: Nick Gessler / Duke University.

Researchers Find Two Extraterrestrial Minerals in El Ali Meteorite

Dec 27, 2022 by News Staff

The El Ali meteorite, a 15.2-ton iron meteorite found in 2020 near the tiny town of El Ali in Somalia, contains at least two new minerals: elaliite and...

This beautifully scene was captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on May 19, 2022 during orbit 23219. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Spots Two Large Craters at Martian South Pole

Dec 23, 2022 by News Staff

A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows an exciting landscape of layered deposits, frost,...

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...

Perseverance’s Navigation Camera (Navcam) observations of the direct dust devil encounter: the Navcam scene (the average background image, top panel) and each dust devil image processed to dust amount (five lower panels), masking out only the truly indeterminate areas (gray); the color scale ranges from optical depth, τ = 0 at the bottom (blue) to τ = 0.12 at the top (yellow), and is linear in between; the areas with low signal-to-noise ratio are masked out, and the images also show non-random noise (banding from instrument electronics during readout); the grid on the scene image (top panel) is 5 degrees in local level azimuth and elevation; the darker gray contours are elevation=0 degrees and azimuth=165 degrees. Image credit: Murdoch et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35100-z.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Records Sound of Martian Dust Devil

Dec 13, 2022 by News Staff

Dust devils — convective vortices loaded with dust — are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of...

NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11, 2022, after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Successfully Lands in Pacific Ocean

Dec 12, 2022 by News Staff

NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California at 12:40 p.m. ET on December 10, 2022....

This artist’s illustration shows the location and size of a hypothetical cloud of dust surrounding our Solar System. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Andi James, STScI.

Astronomers Detect Residual Glow around Our Solar System

Dec 8, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers with the SKYSURF project have searched through 200,000 archival images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and made tens of thousands...

An artist’s impression of an active mantle plume -- a large blob of warm and buoyant rock -- rising from deep inside Mars and pushing up Elysium Planitia, a plain within the planet’s northern lowlands. Image credit: Adrien Broquet & Audrey Lasbordes.

Planetary Scientists Find Evidence for Active Mantle Plume on Mars

Dec 6, 2022 by News Staff

Elysium Planitia, a flat-smooth plain just north of the Martian equator, is underlain by an 4,000-km-diameter active mantle plume, according to new research...

These images of Saturn’s moon Titan were captured by Webb’s NIRCam instrument on November 4, 2022. Left: image using F212N, a 2.12-micron filter sensitive to Titan’s lower atmosphere; the bright spots are prominent clouds in the northern hemisphere. Right: color composite image using a combination of NIRCam filters; several prominent surface features are labeled: Kraken Mare is thought to be a methane sea; Belet is composed of dark-colored sand dunes; Adiri is a bright albedo feature. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / A. Pagan, STScI / Webb Titan GTO Team.

Webb Sees Clouds in Hazy Atmosphere of Titan

Dec 2, 2022 by News Staff

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere, and it is also the only planetary body other than Earth...

An illustration of an asteroid on its way to ancient Mars. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / Nathan Owen-Price / Sci.News.

Chicxulub-Like Asteroid Caused Megatsunami on Early Mars

Dec 1, 2022 by News Staff

The Chicxulub-like asteroid crash landed in shallow ocean waters in the Martian region of Chryse Planitia 3.4 billion years ago (Hesperian period) and...

The young Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 m deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have pooled to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’s northern hemisphere, and in some regions reaching depths greater than 1.6 km. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org.

Early Martian Ocean Was Over 300 Meters Deep, New Research Suggests

Nov 18, 2022 by News Staff

An analysis of chromium isotopes in Martian meteorites suggests that approximately 4.5 billion years ago, there was enough water for the entire planet...

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