Tag Archive for 'Solar System'

NASA’s Mars Helicopter. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA to Send Autonomous Helicopter to Mars

May 14, 2018 by News Staff

The Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstration that will travel to the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, will attempt controlled flight in the...

Our planet is surrounded by the magnetosphere, shown here in blue. As charged particles from the Sun flow around the Earth’s magnetosphere, it forms the magnetosheath, shown in yellow. Image credit: Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s MMS Mission Discovers New Magnetic Process in Earth’s Magnetosheath Region

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

Earth is surrounded by a protective magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, which deflects a supersonic stream of charged particles from the Sun, known...

This artist’s impression shows 2004 EW95, the first carbon-rich asteroid confirmed to exist in the Kuiper Belt and a relic of the primordial Solar System. 2004 EW95 likely formed in the main asteroid belt and has been flung billions of miles from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Find First Carbon-Rich Asteroid in Kuiper Belt: 2004 EW95

May 9, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has found that a small Kuiper Belt object called 2004 EW95 is a carbonaceous (carbon-rich) asteroid — the first...

Gravity of Venus and Jupiter Elongates Earth’s Orbit Every 405,000 Years

May 8, 2018 by News Staff

A research team led by Rutgers University’s Professor Dennis Kent has documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000...

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off with NASA’s InSight spacecraft, seen through a thick fog blanketing Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s InSight Mission Launches to Study Mars’ Interior

May 5, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars InSight mission successfully launched today at 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:05 a.m. PDT) from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California,...

Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges; the large circular feature on the upper right, called Galileo Regio, is an ancient region of unknown origin; Ganymede is thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth and might contain life; like Earth’s Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter; this image was taken about 20 years ago by NASA’s Galileo probe, which ended its mission by diving into Jupiter’s atmosphere in 2003; currently, NASA’s Juno spacecraft orbits Jupiter and is studying the giant planet’s internal structure, among many other attributes. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Galileo probe.

NASA Reveals New Results from Galileo’s Historic Flyby of Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

On June 27, 1996, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made humanity’s first flyby of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, discovering that it is the only moon...

Gaia’s all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. Brighter regions indicate denser concentrations of especially bright stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer bright stars are observed. The color representation is obtained by combining the total amount of light with the amount of blue and red light recorded by Gaia in each patch of the sky. The bright horizontal structure that dominates the image is the Galactic plane, the flattened disc that hosts most of the stars in our home Galaxy. In the middle of the image, the Galactic center appears vivid and teeming with stars. Darker regions across the Galactic plane correspond to foreground clouds of interstellar gas and dust, which absorb the light of stars located further away, behind the clouds. Many of these conceal stellar nurseries where new generations of stars are being born. Sprinkled across the image are also many globular and open clusters -- groupings of stars held together by their mutual gravity, as well as entire galaxies beyond our own. The two bright objects in the lower right of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. In small areas of the image where no color information was available -- to the lower left of the Galactic center, to the upper left of the Small Magellanic Cloud, and in the top portion of the map -- an equivalent grayscale value was assigned. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Catalog of Nearly 1.7 Billion Stars

Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

ESA’s Gaia mission has released the largest catalogue ever of Milky Way stars. It includes the positions on the sky for approximately 1.7 billion stars,...

This image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and surrounding turbulent zones was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The color-enhanced image is a combination of three separate images taken on April 1 between 6:09 a.m. EDT (3:09 a.m. PDT) and 6:24 a.m. EDT (3:24 a.m. PDT). At the time the images were taken, the spacecraft was 15,379 miles (24,749 km) to 30,633 miles (49,299 km) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a southern latitude spanning 43.2 to 62.1 degrees. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt / Sean Doran.

Juno Sends Back Breathtaking New Images of Jupiter

Apr 25, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Juno mission took its twelfth trip around Jupiter on April 1, 2018, and the orbiter has sent back extraordinary images of the gas giant. This...

Astronomers Detect Hydrogen Sulfide in Uranus’ Upper Atmosphere

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have detected hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor,...

Mars is kept company by two cratered moons -- an inner moon named Phobos and an outer moon named Deimos. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems / Texas A&M University.

Violent Collision May Have Created Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

A colossal impact between proto-Mars and a Vesta-to-Ceres-sized object likely produced the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, according to new research. Mars...

The Almahata Sitta meteorite. Image credit: Peter Jenniskens.

Diamond-Bearing ‘Almahata Sitta’ Meteorites Came from Long-Lost Protoplanet

Apr 19, 2018 by News Staff

The Almahata Sitta meteorites — diamond-bearing space rock fragments that rained down on the Nubian Desert in Sudan in 2008 — are remnants...

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Heads for Final Science Orbit after Successful Launch

Apr 19, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was delivered to space Wednesday, April 18, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from...

This composite image, derived from data collected by the JIRAM instrument aboard NASA’s Juno orbiter, shows the central cyclone at Jupiter’s north pole and the eight cyclones that encircle it. JIRAM collects data in infrared, and the colors in this composite represent radiant heat: the yellow (thinner) clouds are about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 13 degrees Celsius) in brightness temperature and the dark red (thickest) are around minus 181 degrees Fahrenheit (83 degrees Celsius). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / ASI / INAF / JIRAM.

New Flyover Video Takes You on Tour of Jupiter’s North Pole

Apr 12, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers on NASA’s Juno mission shared a 3D infrared movie depicting densely packed cyclones and anticyclones that permeate the north polar region...

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

Radio Astronomers Check Interstellar Asteroid Oumuamua for FM Band Signals

Apr 10, 2018 by News Staff

A highly-elongated metallic or rocky object — known as 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua — came from another star system, prompting speculation it could...

Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images. Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.

Venus’ Atmosphere Could Host Acid-Resistant Microorganisms

Apr 2, 2018 by News Staff

In the search for alien life, astrobiologists have turned over all sorts of rocks. For example, Mars has geological features that suggest it once had subsurface...

Greenwood et al discovered that water was present on Earth at an early stage in its evolution and survived the giant impact, which formed the Moon. This is an artist’s depiction of a catastrophic collision between two celestial bodies; such an impact between the proto-Earth and Theia likely formed the Moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Earth’s Water was Present before Moon-Forming Impact, Research Shows

Mar 30, 2018 by News Staff

The high-energy impact about 100 million years after our Solar System formed, resulted in the two colliding planetary objects completely merging to create...

Astronomers Find Super-Earth with Mercury-Like Composition: K2-229b

Mar 28, 2018 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers has discovered a planetary system containing at least three massive planets, orbiting the bright late-G/early-K-type...

Scholz’s star flew through the Oort Cloud 70,000 years ago. Image credit: José A. Peñas / SINC.

Scholz’s Star Disturbed Oort Cloud Objects 70,000 Years Ago

Mar 21, 2018 by Natali Anderson

About 70,000 years ago, a binary stellar system called ‘Scholz’s star’ passed within only 52,000 astronomical units (AU) of the Sun, i.e., within...

The early ocean known as Arabia (left, blue) would have looked like this when it formed 4 billion years ago on Mars, while the Deuteronilus ocean, about 3.6 billion years old, had a smaller shoreline; both coexisted with the massive volcanic province Tharsis, located on the unseen side of the planet, which may have helped support the existence of liquid water; the water is now gone, perhaps frozen underground and partially lost to space, while the ancient seabed is known as the northern plains. Image credit: Robert Citron, University of California, Berkeley.

Martian Oceans Formed Earlier than Thought, Geophysicists Say

Mar 20, 2018 by News Staff

A team of geophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, proposes that Martian oceans originated several hundred million years earlier than thought,...

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

Interstellar Asteroid Oumuamua Likely Came from Double Star System

Mar 20, 2018 by News Staff

1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua, the first asteroid of extrasolar origin identified in the Solar System, likely came from a binary star system, according to new...

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