Insight Into Planetary Evolution – Dark Matter Rare in Old Galaxies
Scientists Gain New Insight into Planetary Evolution Scientists recently gained new insight into the evolution of planet formation by creating and studying a model of a fairly young solar system 300 light years from Earth. The nearly 13 million year-old planetary system circles a star known as HD 106906. The system features a surrounding planet […]
January 2017 Science Images
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Cosmic Cannon; Mars Dust Storm Forecast; Dione’s Subsurface Ocean
Astronomers Find a Cosmic Cannon Astronomers have spotted super-hot blobs of plasma blasting into space like cannonballs near a dying red giant star, some 1,200 light years away. Using the Hubble Space Telescope to make their discovery, the scientists found that the balls of hot gas are flying so fast a trip from the Earth […]
September 2016 Science Images
NASA Will Have Cassini Working Hard Right Up to Fiery Finish
As the saying goes all good things must come to an end and the same will go for the Cassini mission to Saturn as it begins its final year of operation. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has big plans for the orbiter as it makes its year-long swan song. Dubbed the Grand Finale, the space agency […]
Oh! No Flowing H2O on The Red Planet?
Last September, with much hoopla, NASA confirmed evidence of liquid water flowing on present-day Mars. But a new study using data from the space agency’s Mars Odyssey mission throws some cold water on those findings. About a year ago, the space agency’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter identified […]
Black Hole Back Doors?; Io’s Atmosphere; No New Stars in Galaxy Center
Do Black Holes Have Back Doors? Most people describe a black hole as a cosmic object with gravity so strong that it sucks in any kind of material that comes close to it. What happens to stuff that is pulled into a black hole? Some scientists think that matter that enters a black hole gets […]
Where are Ceres Large Craters?
After NASA’s Dawn spacecraft had passed by the asteroid Vesta, on its way to rendezvous with Ceres, mission scientists noticed that its surface was banged up with a lot of very large craters. Its biggest impact crater is Rheasilvia, which measures 505 km in diameter. They expected that Ceres would also be seriously pitted with giant impact basins too. […]
June 2016 Science Images
Mars Makes Closest Approach to Earth in More Than a Decade
Do you want to get a good look at Mars? Well now is the time to catch the Red Planet as it makes its closest approach to Earth in the past eleven years. Every 26 months in an event called an opposition by astronomers – Mars and the Sun happen to be on opposite sides […]