It’s been nine months since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto. Time sure does fly. And even though the spacecraft is moving further from Pluto and Earth, it’s still sending back the massive amounts of data it gathered during closest approach. As this data is received, the huge team of scientists that are part of the mission use it to characterize Pluto so humanity can begin to understand just how strange the distant dwarf Planet is. Five new papers characterize some of the latest science done on the enigmatic world. Here’s a quick summary of each: The first paper from...
Not long ago, the Curiosity rover started taking pictures of a fascinating region near mount Sharp that was soon named the Bagnold Dunes. Dark, sandy, and full of interesting features, the dunes are along the road that Curiosity has to travel before reaching the base of mount Sharp and beginning it’s ascent. Study of the dunes has revealed major differences from dunes on Earth, and they have Astronomers and Geologists alike asking some interesting questions. The more I see photos of Mars, the more I realize that it’s a lot like Earth. It has such diverse features and interesting landscapes,...
Since 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn, giving us unprecedented views of the rings and Moons, and sending back data that has helped us to understand the dynamic nature of the Saturnian system. The flexibility of such a craft allows for new science goals to be determined in an ongoing basis, since new discoveries often lead to new questions and new areas to focus our resources on. Yesterday, October 28th, Cassini focused its resources on the geysers of Enceladus, flying lower than ever before over the surface of the icy moon, in an attempt to sample some of...
We tend to think of the Moon as a boring old rock. “We’ve been there, so we know all there is to know, onto the next one.” But the Moon still holds secrets, and has its surprises. The formation of the Moon through collision of proto-Earth with a Mars-sized object is an idea that can give us a lot of insight into how the Earth formed and what raw materials we started with. But of course to study it we have to see what the Moon is made of in addition to what the Earth’s rocks contain. In recent years,...
Deep within the Earth, far below the layers of rock that form the crust, and even further below the molten rock of the mantle, lies a hot core of Iron and Nickel. The swirling of the liquid metal creates a flow of charge and produces the magnetic field of the Earth, without which we humans could not survive. But there is still more. At the centre of the Earth, a part of the liquid metal core, the size of Pluto, cooled into a solid ball of Iron and Nickel. When in the Earth’s history did it form? This question has...
Around 470 Million years ago, two asteroids collided in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter. This sent fragments everywhere, and millions of years later these fragments moved into the inner solar system, many of which struck the Earth as meteorites. Recently, in Jämtland county, Sweden, a team of geophysicists has identified a pair of impact craters that were formed at the same time, likely from two separate impactors. One of the craters is a massive 7.5 Km across, while the other is smaller at 700 meters. This is the first time a double impactor has been scientifically confirmed on Earth....
Minerals are formed when geological or biological activity create unique combinations of elements. The type of mineral you get is dependent on the environment in which it forms. For geological minerals, pressure and temperature can vary to give different combinations that are difficult to replicate in a lab. For biological minerals, life slowly but surely undergoes processes that shift and shape minerals, usually as a waste product from obtaining energy. But with 3 billion years of life forming and reforming on our planet, springing up new diversity and losing countless species to extinction, there may be minerals that we simply haven’t...
We know that solar systems form in a disk shape, with the star forming in the middle and any other rocks, presumably planets, form out from the center in whatever dust and gas remains. But what about the space between stars? Is it truly empty? And if there is something out there, how could we find it? How did it get there? For years, astronomers and chemists (believe it or not) have been trying to answer these questions and more. The specific problem is that when we take a spectrum of a distant star, we see a collection of 400...
With all the news of the past year in the Astronomy world, Rosetta on 67P, Dawn on Ceres, New Horizons on Pluto, our old friend the Curiosity rover hasn’t had time to watch the news. Curiosity has been working hard, ‘rocking out’ (pun intended) on the red planet. Tomorrow, August 6th, marks its third anniversary since touching down on Mars and beginning science operations that would forever change our understanding of our next-door neighbor. To mark the occasion, the Mars Science Laboratory team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released an anniversary video. For its third anniversary, Curiosity has found...
Friday’s science update from the New Horizons team shed some more light on the seemingly endless jaw-dropping discoveries from the Pluto system. We have found a surprising atmosphere and very cold ice flows, contributing to a surprisingly active geology for an object that receives so little sunlight. Seven hours after the craft made its closest approach of Pluto, it turned around and took a backlit shot, revealing two distinct layers of hazy atmosphere at 80 Km and 50 Km above the surface respectively. It looks more like an eclipse photograph from much closer to home, but it shows a hauntingly...
