The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is a research institute based in Tucson, Arizona, focusing on planetary science. Founded in 1972 on a non-profit basis, it is involved in many NASA missions, the study of Mars, asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, the formation of the Solar System, extrasolar planets, the origin of life, and other scientific topics. It is now actively participating in the Dawn mission, scheduled to explore Vesta between 2011 and 2012, and Ceres in 2015. PSI manages the spacecraft's Gamma-Ray and Neutron Detector, which will map the surfaces of the two minor planets to determine how they were formed and evolved. The Institute's orbit@home is a distributed computing project through which the public can help in the search for near-Earth objects. The Institute is also involved in science education through school programs, popular science books and art. Its scientific Staff are distributed in 16 US states and in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Russia and Australia. Its present director (2009) is Dr. Mark V. Sykes.
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Two exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system have been identified as most likely to be habitable, a paper by PSI Senior Scientist Amy Barr says.
Astronomy
Jan 23, 2018
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Perhaps the most fundamental puzzle in biology—"What is life?"—is addressed in a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Oleg Abramov.
Evolution
Aug 9, 2021
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By developing a new method for measuring isotopic ratios of water and carbon dioxide remotely, scientists have found that the water in Saturn's rings and satellites is unexpectedly like water on the Earth, except on Saturn's ...
Space Exploration
Dec 3, 2018
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NASA's first rover mission to Mars, the Pathfinder, imaged an extraterrestrial marine spillover landscape 22 years ago, according to a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Alexis Rodriguez.
Space Exploration
Mar 15, 2019
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Hubble Space Telescope observations of the dwarf planet Ceres have discovered the first evidence of sulfur, sulfur dioxide and graphitized carbon found on an asteroid. The sulfur species are likely associated with regions ...
Space Exploration
Sep 2, 2016
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Pitted terrains inside fresh complex craters on Ceres are similar to terrains seen Mars and Vesta, and are likely formed through the rapid evaporation of subsurface H2O, a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Research ...
Space Exploration
Jul 8, 2017
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Lunar swirls have been traditionally considered to be unaffected by topographic changes, but a new study shows a correlation between the two. Lunar swirls are high-albedo markings on the moon that occur in both mare—dark, ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 9, 2023
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Two years after a 20-meter rock slammed into the Earth after a meteoroid dramatically fragmented in the atmosphere over the Chelyabinsk region in Russia and injured hundreds of people, its parent asteroid remains elusive, ...
Space Exploration
Feb 13, 2015
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Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place within the past 50,000 years, a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist David Horvath says.
Planetary Sciences
May 6, 2021
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(Phys.org) —An instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back to scientists on Earth an ultra high-resolution image of a penny the rover carried to Mars.
Space Exploration
Oct 9, 2013
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