Tag: Planetary Science
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NASA’s Psyche spacecraft hits a speed bump on the way to a metal asteroid
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, located nearly 150 million miles from Earth on the way to an unexplored metal asteroid, has stopped firing its engines after detecting a problem in its propulsion system. NASA published an update Tuesday revealing that the robotic spacecraft shut off its plasma thrusters earlier this month. The news wasn’t widely shared until…
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Juno reveals Io’s inner structure and volcanic activity; investigates north pole cyclones
New data from NASA’s Juno mission, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, has provided scientists with insight into the extreme winds and cyclones present within the gas giant’s atmosphere. The data allowed scientists to develop a model that better represents the fast jet stream circling Jupiter’s north pole, which is cluttered with many cyclones.…
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Curiosity discovers carbonate mineral, provides insight into disappearance of ancient atmosphere
NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been driving around the surface of Mars for over 12 years, recently discovered a mineral called siderite on the slopes of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. Interestingly, siderite might be the mineral that helps planetary scientists finally solve the mystery of where Mars’ carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere went. Solving such a…
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ESO’s VLT reveals inner wind layers of distant exoplanet
Using data from the four telescopic units of the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of scientists has successfully peered into the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time. Moreover, the data allowed the team to create a three-dimensional map of the atmosphere. The results showed powerful winds within the…
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Webb investigates protoplanetary disk in extreme detail, observes glowing interstellar material
The joint NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb Space Telescope, located at the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, recently utilized its extraordinary suite of infrared instruments to investigate and image a protoplanetary disk around a newborn star. Webb’s observations provided scientists with unprecedented views of the disk, material jets, and…
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Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Something in the sky captured the attention of astronomers in the final days of 2024. A telescope in Chile scanning the night sky detected a faint point of light, and it didn’t correspond to any of the thousands of known stars, comets, and asteroids in astronomers’ all-sky catalog. The detection on December 27 came from…
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Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Something in the sky captured the attention of astronomers in the final days of 2024. A telescope in Chile scanning the night sky detected a faint point of light, and it didn’t correspond to any of the thousands of known stars, comets, and asteroids in astronomers’ all-sky catalog. The detection on December 27 came from…
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Scientists find building blocks of life in OSIRIS-REx samples, discover potentially dangerous asteroid
Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission recently delivered remarkable findings about asteroid 101955 Bennu after the mission returned its samples to Earth in 2023. While scientists revealed the OSIRIS-REx findings this week, a newly discovered asteroid reached level three on the 10-point Torino space impactor hazard scale, the second highest rating given to…
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NASA defers decision on Mars Sample Return to the Trump administration
For nearly four years, NASA’s Perseverance rover has journeyed across an unexplored patch of land on Mars—once home to an ancient river delta—and collected a slew of rock samples sealed inside cigar-sized titanium tubes. These tubes might contain tantalizing clues about past life on Mars, but NASA’s ever-changing plans to bring them back to Earth…
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Space science in 2024: Moon missions, Martian milestones, astrophysics discoveries, and more
2024 was another busy year for space science, with many new missions, successes, and discoveries across the solar system and beyond. Three new missions were launched to the Moon, while one mission was canceled, and Curiosity and Perseverance continued to explore and make discoveries in their respective regions on Mars. Beyond the Earth-Moon system and…