What shape is an asteroid? For (44) Nysa, the honest answer until now has been that nobody knew. It is one of the brightest and largest E-type asteroids in the main belt, a class with a surface rich in enstatite, and its ...
Space Exploration
Aug 9, 2026
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Within our solar system, Uranus is a geometric oddball. Its spin axis tilts more than 90° from its orbit, so it essentially rolls on its side through space. In contrast, Earth and other planets tilt only moderately or not ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 7, 2026
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On Mother's Day weekend in May 2024, Earth experienced its most powerful geomagnetic storm in two decades, spawning auroras—the ribbony bands of light in the nighttime skies in the Northern and Southern hemispheres—that may ...
Astronomy
Aug 7, 2026
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High-energy particles in Earth's radiation belt can appear to spread out randomly, even when they are moving in a "predictable" way. This is because spacecraft observations naturally blur the fine-scale structure of the particle ...
Astronomy
Aug 6, 2026
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Deep inside super-Earths—rocky planets with masses between 1 and 10 times that of Earth—high pressure can cause familiar minerals to take forms rarely seen on Earth. Understanding more about the temperature and pressure conditions ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 6, 2026
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A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has captured a massive stream of gas—one trillion miles, or 0.2 light-years, long—feeding the young triple-star system GW Orionis. These ...
Astronomy
Aug 6, 2026
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A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) provides evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to Pluto's surface through cracks at the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, part of the massive heart-shaped glacier ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 6, 2026
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This composite of seven images from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover shows Earth, visible as a small bright dot moving from upper left to lower right, passing behind the Martian moon Phobos on ...
Astronomy
Aug 6, 2026
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Venus may be overwhelmingly inhospitable today, but many planetary scientists believe that it wasn't always this way. Billions of years ago, some observational evidence suggested that our planetary neighbor may have looked ...
Scientists plan to use a total solar eclipse that will be visible in Spain next week as a rare chance to learn more about the stormy, unpredictable nature of our star.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 5, 2026
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