On Sept. 5, 2022, NASA's Parker Solar Probe soared gracefully through one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded—not only an impressive feat of engineering, but a huge boon for the scientific community. ...
Astronomy
Sep 18, 2023
6
86
As anyone who has ever tried to clean a home knows, ridding yourself of dust is a Sisyphean effort. No surface stays free of it for long. It turns out that space is somewhat similar. Space is filled with interplanetary dust, ...
Space Exploration
Apr 29, 2021
8
124
Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets and asteroids. These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 8, 2021
2
3675
Data from the NASA spacecraft's journey to Jupiter suggests that Mars may be shedding dust into interplanetary space.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 9, 2021
16
2037
It is thought that over 1,000 kilograms of so-called interplanetary dust falls to Earth every day. This dust is produced by an untold number of small faint meteors, discarded remnants of asteroids and comets that pass by ...
Astronomy
Nov 11, 2020
0
128
A 40-year-old enigma about ghostly magnetic fields in interplanetary space may have finally been solved by new data from a constellation of 12 satellites in near-Earth space.
Space Exploration
Feb 10, 2020
24
654
Cosmic dust is the key to the chemical evolution of stars, planets, and life itself, but its composition is not well understood, and we can't currently collect samples for analysis. A few examples have arrived on Earth as ...
Astronomy
Jan 31, 2020
1
9
A team of Hungarian astronomers and physicists may have confirmed two elusive clouds of dust, in semi-stable points just 400,000 kilometres from Earth. The clouds, first reported by and named for Polish astronomer Kazimierz ...
Astronomy
Oct 26, 2018
4
315
Asteroids and comets appear to be a much more important supplier of organic molecules on Mars than expected. Until now, astronomers assumed that the organics on Mars mainly came from dust particles from space. Now, computer ...
Space Exploration
Mar 14, 2018
3
238
We are not used to considering dust as a valuable material – unless it comes from space. And more precisely, from the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. An analysis of its dust has provided valuable information about this ...
Space Exploration
Jan 23, 2018
0
16
