Astronomers Find and Confirm 44 New Extrasolar Planets
An international team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of 44 new extrasolar planets. The planets were first spotted by the astronomers through data gathered from Campaign #10 of NASA’s Kepler K2 mission. According to NASA’s Kepler and K2 webpage, campaign #10 ran from July 6, 2016, to September 20, 2016. To verify their findings, […]
Mars In The News
Two new studies about Mars made news this week. Liquid Water Lake Detected on Mars First, a group of Italian scientists announced that they detected a 20-kilometer-wide lake of liquid water located about 1.5 kilometers beneath the ice of the southern polar ice cap of Mars. The scientists analyzed more than three years of data […]
Astronomers Discover Ancient Galactic Collision that Reshaped the Milky Way
A team of astronomers found evidence of a cataclysmic collision between the Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy some 8 to 10 billion years ago. The astronomers refer to this galactic crash as a ‘defining event’ in the early history of the Milky Way. They say the collision between our galaxy, and what is being […]
Calculations Show Mercury Has a Thin but Dense Crust
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and very little is really known about this hot rocky orb. So far, only two space probes have ever studied Mercury. NASA’s Mariner 10 flew past the planet three times between 1973 and 1974. The flybys allowed scientists to map about half the planet, discover its thin […]
Galaxy Megamergers 1.4 – 1.5 Billion Years after the Big Bang
Two teams of astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), in Chile, to observe dense concentrations of so-called “starburst” galaxies. With these galaxies packing together so closely, the scientific teams realized that they were getting ready to violently collide and merge with each other, which would eventually […]
SWARM Tracks the Ocean’s Magnetic Field
Earth’s magnetic fields protect us from deadly radiation from high-energy solar particles and cosmic rays. Most of this protective shield is produced by a vast amount of hot molten iron swirling around in our planet’s outer core. But there’s another little-known contributor to our geomagnetic field. It’s the salty and electrically conductive ocean. When salty ocean […]
ESA Mars Orbiter Gets A Software Upgrade
If you own any kind of computing device, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer, you know sooner or later that you’re going to have to update or install new software to keep it functioning. The same thing can also be said about spacecraft that have been in service for a while. The […]
More Testing Needed: NASA Delays Launch of Webb Space Telescope
Have you been anxiously waiting to see some of the new and more dazzling views of space that NASA promises will be provided by the new James Webb Space Telescope? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you’re going to have to wait a little longer. The US space agency says they must delay sending the more powerful […]
Chinese Space Station Expected To Fall to Earth Within Days
Aerospace experts say they expect the Chinese space station, Tiangong-1, or “Celestial Palace 1” in English, to drop out of orbit and fall to Earth sometime between March 30th and April 2nd. Considering its orbital path and expected reentry trajectory, the experts say the space station could fall anywhere in the world between nearly 43° north […]
Lots of Water Detected in Exoplanet WASP 39b Atmosphere
Scientists, who studied a “hot Jupiter-like” exoplanet with NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, were able to detect signs of water in its atmosphere. And, they didn’t just find signs of a little water – but a lot of water, three times the amount of water on our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter. The exoplanet they […]