Tag Archive for 'Solar System'

Saturn’s Great Northern Storm churning through the atmosphere in the planet’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This picture, captured on February 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the gas giant. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s Northern Storms Cause Disturbances in Its ‘Heartbeat’

Dec 31, 2017 by News Staff

Giant storms in Saturn’s northern hemisphere can disturb atmospheric patterns at the ringed giant’s equator, according to new research published in...

2014 MU69, the next flyby target of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, might have a moon. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI.

Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 Might Have a Small Moon

Dec 29, 2017 by News Staff

The upcoming encounter of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft with 2014 MU69 will be an important and rare opportunity for close-up study of a Kuiper Belt...

Main-belt asteroids 29 Amphitrite, 324 Bamberga, 2 Pallas, and 89 Julia. Image credit: Vernazza et al / ESO.

ESO’s Planet Hunter Spots Four Massive Main-Belt Asteroids

Dec 28, 2017 by News Staff

ESO’s Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument, installed on the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in...

This image shows an enormous, balloon-like bubble (center) being blown into space by a super-hot, massive Wolf-Rayet star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, and L. Frattare (Viz 3D Team, STScI).

Solar System May Have Been Born in Wolf-Rayet Bubble

Dec 26, 2017 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from the University of Chicago and Clemson University has laid out a theory for how our Solar System could have formed in the dense...

This artist’s concept depicts the dry environment seen at Mars today versus the early Martian environment. Image credit: Simon Fraser University.

Study: Martian Surface Water Was Absorbed by Planet’s Crust

Dec 24, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Nature, the Sun may not have evaporated away all of the Martian surface water after all; instead, Mars’...

Dragonfly is a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Saturn’s hazy moon Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan’s organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies. Image credit: NASA.

NASA Announces Finalists for Future Solar System Mission

Dec 21, 2017 by News Staff

NASA has selected two finalist concepts for a robotic mission planned to launch in the mid-2020s: a comet sample return mission and a drone-like rotorcraft...

Research conducted in laboratories has previously shown that bacteria can stay alive at extremely cold temperatures, but the new study by Redeker et al is the first time that bacteria have been observed altering the polar snow environment in situ. Image credit: Robyn M.

Researchers Directly Observe Microbial Activity in Polar Snow for First Time

Dec 21, 2017 by News Staff

An international team led by University of York researchers has directly observed microbial activity in Antarctic and Arctic snow — an environment...

A stunning view of Mars from the north pole to the equator. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA Releases Stunning New Image of Mars

Dec 20, 2017 by News Staff

In this stunning image taken by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, Mars is seen with north at the bottom, and the equator at the top. A stunning view of...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Breakthrough Listen: No Artificial Signals Found Emanating from Interstellar Asteroid Oumuamua

Dec 19, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative are reporting preliminary results and making initial data available from its observations of 1I/2017...

This artist’s impression shows ‘Oumuamua. Image credit: Joy Pollard / Gemini Observatory / AURA / NSF.

Interstellar Asteroid Oumuamua Has Grayish-Red Organic-Rich Surface Layer, Astronomers Say

Dec 19, 2017 by News Staff

In October 2017, astronomers made a surprising discovery with the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawai’i — 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, the first asteroid...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid -- 1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua). Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Breakthrough Listen Initiative to Observe First Interstellar Asteroid

Dec 12, 2017 by News Staff

The Breakthrough Listen initiative — the largest ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of alien civilizations — announced...

This full-disc image of Jupiter was taken on 21 April 2014 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Simon, Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s Juno Orbiter Explores Depths of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Dec 12, 2017 by News Staff

Data collected by Juno during its first pass over Jupiter’s mysterious, roiling storm called the Great Red Spot in July 2017 indicate that this famous...

Mars may have been enveloped in a steamy atmosphere as the planet’s crust cooled and solidified. That ‘steam bath’ could have created many of the clay mineral deposits that have long been attributed to water flow on or just beneath the Martian surface. Image credit: Kevin Cannon.

Research Suggests Martian Clays Formed in Ancient ‘Steam Bath’

Dec 7, 2017 by News Staff

On Mars, phyllosilicate (clay) minerals are widespread in terrains that date back to the Noachian period, 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago. Phyllosilicates...

Marchi et al modeled the protracted period of bombardment after the Moon formed, determining that impactor metals may have descended into Earth’s core. This artistic rendering illustrates a large impactor crashing into the young Earth. Light brown and gray particles indicate the projectile’s mantle (silicate) and core (metal) material, respectively. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Large Planetesimals Delivered More Mass to Proto-Earth than Previously Thought

Dec 5, 2017 by News Staff

After the Moon’s formation, Earth experienced a protracted bombardment by large (over 1,500 km in diameter) planetesimals. Dr. Simone Marchi, a researcher...

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.

Research Provides New Evidence of Plate Tectonics in Europa’s Ice Shell

Dec 5, 2017 by News Staff

A process called subduction — when a tectonic plate slides underneath another and sinks deep into a planetary body’s interior — is physically...

Titan’s south polar vortex stands out against the orange and blue haze layers that are characteristic of the hazy moon’s atmosphere. This view looks towards the trailing hemisphere of Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 km across). North on Titan is up and rotated 17 degrees to the left. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural-color view. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 30, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 895,000 miles (1.441 million km) from Titan. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

New Study Explains Unexpected Cooling of Titan’s Polar Atmosphere

Nov 24, 2017 by News Staff

A study published in the journal Nature Communications has shown that a recently reported unexpected polar vortex behavior on Saturn’s hazy moon Titan...

This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn and its rings. Six of Saturn’s moons make a faint appearance in this image: the ice-covered moon Enceladus can be seen at the 1 o’clock position; directly below Enceladus, just outside the F ring (the thin, farthest ring from the planet seen in this image) lies the small moon Epimetheus; following the F ring clock-wise from Epimetheus, the next moon seen is Janus; at about the 4:30 position and outward from the F ring is Mimas; inward of Mimas and still at about the 4:30 position is the F-ring-disrupting moon, Pandora; moving around to the 10 o’clock position, just inside of the F ring, is the moon Prometheus. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Team Releases Stunning Natural-Color Image of Saturn

Nov 23, 2017 by News Staff

After more than 13 years at Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft bid farewell to the Saturnian system by firing the shutters of its wide-angle camera and...

Hypervelocity space dust is a unique entity in planetary systems like our Solar System, which is able to go past and enter the atmosphere of planets, collect samples of those planets and deposit samples of other planets. Image credit: Jonny Lindner.

Space Dust May Transport Biological Particles between Distant Planets, New Study Suggests

Nov 22, 2017 by News Staff

Streams of space dust that continually bombard Earth’s atmosphere could deliver microbial life and life essential molecules from distant planets, or...

According to Zhang et al, Pluto’s atmosphere is unique among Solar System planetary atmospheres, as its equilibrium temperature is controlled primarily by solid-phase haze particles instead of gas molecules. This artist’s impression shows a view of the moon Charon through Pluto’s atmospheric haze layers above the mountain landscape of bedrock water ice covered partially with deposition of dark, reddish haze particles. Image credit: X. Liu.

Haze Particles Cool Pluto’s Atmosphere, New Research Finds

Nov 21, 2017 by News Staff

It turns out solid-phase haze particles help cool the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. That’s according to new research by planetary scientists...

Our Milky Way Galaxy is organized into spiral arms of giant stars that illuminate interstellar gas and dust. The Sun is in a finger called the Orion Spur. Overlaid is a graphic of galactic longitude in relation to our Sun. Image credit: NASA / Adler / University of Chicago / Wesleyan / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Find Very Old Stars in Solar Neighborhood

Nov 21, 2017 by News Staff

A research team led by Georgia State University astronomers has discovered some of the oldest stars in our solar neighborhood by determining their locations...

«‹57 585960 61 ›»