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Planetary Sciences news
Philae's extraordinary comet landing relived
On 12 November 2014, after a 10-year journey through the solar system and over 500 million kilometers from home, Rosetta's lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the ...
Planetary Sciences
4 hours ago
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Team proposes new solar composition ratios that could reconcile longstanding questions
A Southwest Research Institute-led team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles ...
Astronomy
4 hours ago
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A mission to Triton and Neptune could unlock their mysteries
A town in the Austrian Alps might not seem like the most conducive place to come up with daring space missions. But, for the last 40 years, students and professors have been gathering to do just that in Alpbach, just north ...
Planetary Sciences
5 hours ago
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Right now, the sun is far more active than predicted—and small satellites are paying the price
Last week, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University's Binar Space Program burned up in Earth's atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar means "fireball" in the Noongar language of the First ...
Planetary Sciences
5 hours ago
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Happy New Year on Mars
12 November 2024 marks the start of a new year on Mars. At exactly 10:32 CET/09:32 UTC on Earth, the Red Planet begins a new orbit around our sun.
Planetary Sciences
7 hours ago
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AI-enhanced model could improve space weather forecasting
"Killer electrons" that travel at nearly light speed inside Earth's Van Allen belts—the zone that surrounds the planet and traps energetic charged particles—pose a major threat to equipment in space by causing malfunctions ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 11, 2024
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Team reveals how current sheets in turbulent plasma form in Earth's magnetosheath
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process in plasmas, through which the magnetic energy is converted into plasma kinetic energy and thermal energy rapidly. Current sheets in turbulent plasma are the key trigger ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 11, 2024
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Swirling polar vortices likely exist on the sun, new research finds
Like the Earth, the sun likely has swirling polar vortices, according to new research led by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR). But unlike on Earth, the formation and ...
Astronomy
Nov 11, 2024
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Jupiter-mass binary objects hidden in Orion Nebula: Study explores new theory on their formation
Deep within the Orion Nebula, researchers are one step closer to understanding how Jupiter-mass binary objects (JuMBOs) form—a longstanding mystery in astrophysics
Astronomy
Nov 11, 2024
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Mining old data from NASA's Voyager 2 solves several Uranus mysteries
When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, it provided scientists' first—and, so far, only—close glimpse of this strange, sideways-rotating outer planet. Alongside the discovery of new moons and rings, baffling ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 11, 2024
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A distant planet seems to have a sulfur-rich atmosphere, hinting at alien volcanoes
Today, we know of more than 5,000 exoplanets: planets outside our solar system that orbit other stars. While the effort to discover new worlds goes on, we're steadily learning more about the exoplanets we've already detected: ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 11, 2024
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Powerful new US-Indian satellite will track Earth's changing surface
Data from NISAR will improve our understanding of such phenomena as earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, as well as damage to infrastructure.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 8, 2024
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Chinese rover finds evidence of ancient Martian ocean
A Chinese rover has found new evidence to support the theory that Mars was once home to a vast ocean, including tracing some ancient coastline where water may once have lapped, a study said Thursday.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 7, 2024
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Spectral method can compute tidal effects on planet and moon interiors
Scientists have developed a new method to compute how tides affect the interiors of planets and moons. Importantly, the new study looks at the effects of body tides on objects that don't have a perfectly spherical interior ...
Astrobiology
Nov 7, 2024
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Proba-3 will constantly measure Sun's energy output
Proba-3 is such an ambitious mission that it needs more than one single spacecraft to succeed. In order for Proba-3's Coronagraph spacecraft observe the sun's faint surrounding atmosphere, its disk-bearing Occulter spacecraft ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 7, 2024
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Examining how stellar threats impact the habitable zone of exoplanets
When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we home in on the habitable zone. A habitable zone is a region around a star where planets receive enough stellar energy to have liquid surface water. It's a somewhat ...
Astrobiology
Nov 6, 2024
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Asteroid grains shed light on the outer solar system's origins
Tiny grains from a distant asteroid are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system more than 4.6 billion years ago.
Astronomy
Nov 6, 2024
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How many additional exoplanets are in known systems?
One thing we've learned in recent decades is that exoplanets are surprisingly common. So far, we've confirmed nearly 6,000 planets, and we have evidence for thousands more. Most of these planets were discovered using the ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 5, 2024
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Moon waves goodbye to Hera
As ESA's Hera mission for planetary defense departed its homeworld, it looked back to Earth to show the moon orbiting around it. In this sequence of images the terrestrial disk gradually shrinks as the spacecraft recedes ...
Space Exploration
Nov 5, 2024
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Scientists have figured out why Martian soil is so crusty
On November 26, 2018, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission landed on Mars. This was a major milestone in Mars exploration since it was the first time a research ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 5, 2024
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More news
Carbon dioxide collapse: How water flowed on an icy Mars
International SWOT satellite spots planet-rumbling Greenland tsunami
This is what it sounds like when the Earth's poles flip
Sols 4350-4351: A whole team effort
Tiny fragments of a 4-billion-year-old asteroid reveal its history
Haunting whispers from the Martian landscape make for a spooky 'soliday'
Laser measurements help track space debris and observe water masses
Image: A particular lenticular cloud
Uranus' moon Miranda may have an ocean beneath its surface, study finds
NASA's Perseverance rover looks back while climbing slippery slope
'Halloween comet' breaks apart after flying close to the sun
Sols 4345-4347: Contact science is back on the table
New NASA instrument for studying snowpack completes airborne testing
HD 28185 c is not a brown dwarf but a massive planet, study finds
Other news
Low-cost method removes micro- and nanoplastics from water
Virtual fruity fly model can simulate sensory navigation
Bioengineered yeast mass produces herbal medicine
Synthetic cells successfully emulate natural cellular communication
Hera asteroid mission's CubeSat passengers signal home
The search for exomoons is on
Mars Perseverance rover: Red rocks with green spots at 'Serpentine Rapids'
Sols 4343-4344: Late slide, late changes
Saturn's moon Titan has insulating methane-rich crust up to six miles thick
Did some of Earth's water come from the solar wind?
