Tag Archive for 'Solar System'

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

Earth’s Continental Crust First Emerged 3.7 Billion Years Ago

Apr 29, 2021 by News Staff

Reconstructing the emergence and weathering of Earth’s continental crust in the Archean eon is crucial for our understanding of early ocean chemistry,...

Hubble photo of Mars taken when the planet was 50 million miles (80 million km) from Earth on May 12. The photo reveals details as small as 20 - 30 miles (32.2 - 48.3 km) across. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA / J. Bell, ASU / M. Wolff, Space Science Institute.

High-Altitude Ice Clouds Caused Greenhouse Effect on Early Mars, New Study Suggests

Apr 27, 2021 by News Staff

Mars is cold today but once had water lakes and flowing rivers. The early warm climate cannot be explained by basic models of the early Mars greenhouse...

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter can be seen hovering during its third flight on April 25, 2021, as seen by the left Navigation Camera aboard the Perseverance rover. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ingenuity Helicopter Sets New Records during Its Third Flight

Apr 26, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took off at 4:31 a.m. EDT (1:31 a.m. PDT), or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, on April 25, 2021, rising 5 m (16 feet); then it...

This image was taken by the WATSON camera on the robotic arm of Perseverance on April 6, 2021 (46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Perseverance Extracts Pure Oxygen from Carbon Dioxide-Rich Martian Air

Apr 23, 2021 by News Staff

On April 20, 2021, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover converted some of carbon...

NASA’s Perseverance rover acquired this image on April 22, 2021, using its left Mastcam-Z camera. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Completes Its Second Flight on Mars

Apr 22, 2021 by News Staff

Lasting 51.9 seconds, Ingenuity’s experimental flight on April 22, 2021, added several new challenges to its first flight, including a higher maximum...

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.

Martian Climate Fluctuated between Drier and Wetter Periods Before It Went Dry

Apr 19, 2021 by News Staff

Mars had drier and wetter eras before drying up completely in the Hesperian period, about 3 billion years ago, according to an analysis of observational...

These SEM images show cosmic spherules and unmelted micrometeorites from the CONCORDIA collection, from left to right, top to bottom: glassy cosmic spherule, stony cosmic spherule, partially melted micrometeorite, unmelted fine-grained micrometeorite. Image credit: Rojas et al., doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116794.

Study: 5,200 Tons of Extraterrestrial Dust Reach Earth’s Surface Each Year

Apr 13, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a new paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, an international team of researchers presents the results from a long-term...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Selfie with Ingenuity Helicopter

Apr 8, 2021 by News Staff

Perseverance took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here 4 m (13 feet) away in this image from April 6, 2021. This image was taken by the WATSON...

This image from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft shows a volcanic explosion on Io. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizon.

ALMA Detects Volcanic Gases in Atmosphere of Io

Apr 7, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers from India have detected acetone, disulfur monoxide, and carbon monoxide...

An artist’s impression of the InSight lander on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Two Strong, Clear Marsquakes

Apr 2, 2021 by News Staff

On March 7 and 18, 2021, NASA’s InSight lander detected 3.3- and 3.1-magnitude marsquakes originating in a location called Cerberus Fossae, further supporting...

This composite image shows a Chandra X-ray image of Uranus from 2002 (pink) superimposed on an optical image from the Keck-I Telescope obtained in 2004. Image credit: NASA / CXO / University College London / Dunn et al.

Chandra Detects X-Ray Emission from Uranus

Apr 1, 2021 by News Staff

Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, and its ring system appear to mainly produce X-ray emission by scattering solar X-rays, but some may also come...

Visible images with sketch maps showing major geologic features within as-yet unnamed crater mapped by Boatwright & Head: (a) the 54-km-diameter crater in the southern highlands of Mars (20.3°S, 42.6°E); no inlet or outlet breaches are observed; ridge networks (blue) begin near the crater wall base, where they are coincident with upslope-facing scarps (dashed lines) and crater wall alcoves; ridges terminate in two paleolake basins (cyan and green); (b) morphology of the eastern ridge network transitions downslope from dense proximal ridges to more widely spaced medial ridges; several medial ridges then converge into a single trunk ridge; (c) the southern ridge network terminates at three separate points along the margin of basin II. One of the ridges also displays an anabranching morphology. Image credit: Boatwright & Head, doi: 10.3847/PSJ/abe773.

New Type of Paleolake Spotted on Mars

Mar 31, 2021 by News Staff

A 54-km- (33.5-mile) diameter Noachian-aged crater with neither inlet nor outlet channels is distinct from previously documented crater basin lakes on...

An artist’s impression of what the surface of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov might look like. Image credit: ESO / M. Kormesser.

Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov is One of Most Pristine Comets Known

Mar 31, 2021 by News Staff

Two teams of astronomers have performed polarimetric observations of 2I/Borisov, the first active extrasolar comet ever detected in our Solar System, using...

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...

Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon’s south pole and creating Saturn’s mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. Tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL / SSI / Cassini Imaging Team.

Subsurface Ocean of Enceladus Has Currents, New Theory Suggests

Mar 26, 2021 by News Staff

A novel theory proposed by planetary scientists from Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenges the current thinking that the saltwater...

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 artist’s impression of ‘Oumuamua as a piece of nearly pure nitrogen ice. Image credit: William Hartmann / Arizona State University.

Oumuamua is Nitrogen-Ice Fragment of Pluto-Like Exoplanet, New Theory Says

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

1I/‘Oumuamua, a strange object of extrasolar origin discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, was small, about half as long as a...

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...

«‹33 343536 37 ›»