Tag Archive for 'Water'

Aeolis Dorsa, Mars: the dotted white arrow points to curved strata recording point bar growth and river migration; the boundaries of ancient valley walls are defined by textural and albedo changes and are also associated with lateral river migration; stacked above the point bars and completely confined within the dotted white and black lines are topographically inverted river deposits outcropping as ridges (e.g., black arrow); in places (e.g., south of the dotted white arrow), the ridges run against the dotted boundaries, suggesting flow was once redirected along a valley wall. Image credit: Cardenas et al, doi: 10.1130/B31567.1.

Planetary Researchers Find More Evidence of Water on Early Mars

Sep 19, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

River deposits exist across the Martian surface. A large sedimentary basin named Aeolis Dorsa contains some of the planet’s most spectacular and densely...

Zeolitic ice (left) and aeroice (right) are illustrated: their structure can be regarded as combinations of a couple of polyhedral building blocks. In molecular scale, each polygonal face of the polyhedra is made of water molecules (left bottom); yellow lines are hydrogen bonds. Image credit: Masakazu Matsumoto / CC BY 2.0.

Scientists Predict Existence of Ultralow-Density Ices: ‘Aeroices’

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

A research team at Okayama University in Japan has theoretically predicted a new class of ice phases, called aeroices, likely the most stable solid phases...

This artist’s concept allows us to imagine what it would be like to stand on the surface of TRAPPIST-1f. Because this planet is thought to be tidally locked to its star, meaning the same face of the planet is always pointed at the star, there would be a region called the terminator that perpetually divides day and night. If the night side is icy, the day side might give way to liquid water in the area where sufficient starlight hits the surface. One of the unusual features of TRAPPIST-1 planets is how close they are to each other -- so close that other planets could be visible in the sky from the surface of each one. In this view, the planets in the sky correspond to TRAPPIST1e (top left crescent), d (middle crescent) and c (bright dot to the lower right of the crescents). TRAPPIST-1e would appear about the same size as the Moon and TRAPPIST1-c is on the far side of the star. The star itself, an ultra-cool dwarf, would appear about three times larger than our own Sun does in Earth’s skies. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Catlech.

TRAPPIST-1’s Outer Planets May Harbor Water, New Study Finds

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

In a research paper to appear in the Astronomical Journal (arXiv.org preprint), astronomers from MIT, the Geneva Observatory and elsewhere report that...

Chesapeake Bay near the Rappahannock River Mouth, VA. Image credit: University of Delaware.

Researchers Find ‘Acid Zone’ in Chesapeake Bay

Aug 28, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by University of Delaware Professor Wei-Jun Cai has discovered a ‘pH minimum zone’ that occurs at a depth of 30-50 feet (10-15...

Oxo Crater is the second-brightest feature on Ceres. Only Occator’s central area is brighter. Oxo lies near the 0 degree meridian that defines the edge of many Ceres maps, making this small feature easy to overlook. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image in its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of 385 km from the surface of Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI.

Crater Slope Avalanches Reveal Ceres’ Surface Water Ice

Aug 25, 2017 by James Romero

Surface water ice found within a brilliantly bright crater on the dwarf planet Ceres is being exposed by avalanches reprocessing impact deposits in just...

Moon’s Interior Likely Contains No Water, New Research Says

Aug 22, 2017 by News Staff

A new study led by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher contradicts a recently published paper, which suggested the interior of Earth’s only...

Professor Chang and co-authors broke the record for the shortest light pulse. Image credit: University of Central Florida.

Shortest Laser Pulse Lasts 53 Attoseconds

Aug 8, 2017 by News Staff

An international group of physicists and engineers, led by Professor Zenghu Chang of the University of Central Florida, has produced the shortest-ever...

The top of WASP-121b’s atmosphere is heated to a blazing 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STSci.

Stratosphere Detected around Hot Jupiter WASP-121b

Aug 3, 2017 by News Staff

An international research team led by University of Exeter astronomer Dr. Tom Evans has revealed a stratosphere containing water and possibly oxides of...

Map of ESPAT (effective single particle absorption thickness) values and associated water contents derived from Moon Mineralogy Mapper spectra. Numerous locations of increased water content (arrows) are associated with previously recognized pyroclastic deposits ranging in area from thousands of square km to much smaller deposits recently identified in high-resolution Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images. A - Aristarchus Plateau, H – Harbinger, H&D - Humorum & Doppelmayer, O – Orientale, RB - Rima Bode, SA - Sinus Aestuum, SG - Sulpicius Gallus, TL - Taurus-Littrow, V – Vaporum. Image credit: Ralph E. Milliken & Shuai Li, doi: 10.1038/ngeo2993.

Chandrayaan-1 Orbiter Spots Water-Rich Volcanic Deposits on Lunar Surface

Jul 25, 2017 by News Staff

Ancient volcanic deposits distributed across the surface of the Moon contain unexpectedly high amounts of water compared with surrounding terrains, according...

Artist’s conception of the dust and gas surrounding a newly formed planetary system. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Water Explained by Gas Giant Gluttony

Jul 19, 2017 by James Romero

Water on Earth, Mars and everywhere within the inner Solar System can be traced back to the rapid waist-expanding growth of Jupiter and Saturn, which knocked...

Experimental configuration of the X-ray Free Electron Laser probe and optical laser; the shock freezing behavior of water captured in a Debye-Scherrer geometry. Inset: schematic of target package as a cut away side view. Image credit: Gleason et al, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.025701.

Researchers Observe Real-Time Growth of Exotic ‘Ice VII’

Jul 12, 2017 by News Staff

A Stanford-led research team has captured the freezing of water, molecule-by-molecule, into a super-dense, exotic form of ice called ice VII. The results...

Amaya et al created 78% cubic ice crystals. Image credit: Ohio State University.

Physical Chemists Create 78% Cubic Ice Crystals

Jul 10, 2017 by News Staff

Physical chemists from Ohio State University and elsewhere have set a new record for creating ice crystals that have a near-perfect cubic arrangement of...

An artist’s impression of the two forms of ultra-viscous liquid water with different density; on the background is depicted the X-ray speckle pattern taken from actual data of high-density amorphous ice, which is produced by pressurizing water at very low temperatures. Image credit: Mattias Karlén.

Physicists Discover Two Low-Temperature Forms of Liquid Water

Jun 27, 2017 by News Staff

A Stockholm University-led team of physicists has discovered two low-temperature phases of liquid water with large differences in structure and density. An...

A view of the Moon’s south pole showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Finds New Evidence of Surface Water Ice on Moon

Jun 2, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have found evidence of surface frost near the Moon’s south pole. A view of...

This artist’s concept shows a simulated view from the surface of Jupiters moon Europa. Europa’s potentially rough, icy surface, tinged with reddish areas, can be seen in the foreground. The giant planet Jupiter looms over the horizon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Radioactive Decay Could Support Life on Solar System’s Ocean Worlds

May 24, 2017 by News Staff

A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters examines whether radioactive decay could support life on ocean worlds like Jupiter’s moon...

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.

Research Reveals How Changes in Rainfall Shaped Early Mars

May 16, 2017 by News Staff

Heavy rain on Mars reshaped impact craters and carved out river-like channels in the planet’s surface billions of years ago, according to a study by...

The atmosphere of the Neptune-mass exoplanet HAT-P-26b is unexpectedly primitive, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. By combining observations from Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, Wakeford et al determined that, unlike Neptune and Uranus, the exoplanet has relatively low metallicity. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

HAT-P-26b: Unexpectedly Primitive Atmosphere Discovered around Neptune-Mass Exoplanet

May 12, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered that HAT-P-26b — a ‘warm Neptune’ orbiting a dwarf star approximately 437 light-years from Earth — has an atmosphere...

Researchers Manipulate Liquids Using Only Visible Light

Apr 25, 2017 by News Staff

A novel system developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could make it possible to control the way a liquid moves over...

Hubble captured additional evidence of water vapor plumes on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa; the probable plumes appear to be repeating in the same location and correspond with a relatively warm region on Europa’s surface observed by the Galileo spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Hubble Spots Recurring Water Vapor Plume Erupting on Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Apr 14, 2017 by News Staff

Recent observations of Europa by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered a plume of material erupting from the moon’s surface at precisely...

A large pit valley in Lucaya crater, Mars: (a) exposure of putative crossbeds on windward slope of dunes, and (b) interdune strata exposed in planform showing contrasting albedo and crosscutting relationships similar to that exposed in the dune. Image credit: M.C. Bourke & H.A. Viles.

Researchers Uncover New Evidence for Water on Ancient Mars

Feb 19, 2017 by News Staff

Dr. Mary Bourke from Trinity College Dublin and University of Oxford Professor Heather Viles have discovered a patch of land in an equatorial crater on...

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