The cosmic optical background (COB) is the visible light emitted by all sources outside of the Milky Way. This faint glow of light, which can only be observed using very precise and sophisticated telescopes, could help astrophysics ...
The mystery of how Pluto got a giant heart-shaped feature on its surface has finally been solved by an international team of astrophysicists led by the University of Bern and members of the National Center of Competence in ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 15, 2024
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333
Southwest Research Institute scientists combined data from NASA's New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modeling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and how ...
Astronomy
Jun 21, 2022
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488
Only the two Voyager spacecraft have ever been there, and it took than more than 30 years of supersonic travel. It lies well past the orbit of Pluto, through the rocky Kuiper belt, and on for four times that distance. This ...
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2020
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1186
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and one in France has found evidence of ammonia on the surface of Pluto. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes ...
Using New Horizons data from the Pluto-Charon flyby in 2015, a Southwest Research Institute-led team of scientists have indirectly discovered a distinct and surprising lack of very small objects in the Kuiper Belt. The evidence ...
Space Exploration
Feb 28, 2019
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558
Scientists have discovered dunes on Pluto, and say they are likely to have been formed of methane ice grains released into its rarefied atmosphere.
Space Exploration
May 31, 2018
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205
The gas composition of a planet's atmosphere generally determines how much heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. For the dwarf planet Pluto, however, the predicted temperature based on the composition of its atmosphere was ...
Space Exploration
Nov 15, 2017
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169
(Science X)—It was a big week for space science as a team with members from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen found that a distant star was the roundest object ever observed ...
Beneath Pluto's "heart" lies a cold, slushy ocean of water ice, according to data from NASA's New Horizons mission. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the New Horizons team, including researchers from MIT, ...
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2016
6
2590
