Building Blocks of Life Discovered on Saturn Moon – Enceladus
NASA’s Cassini mission, which provided a close look of Saturn, its moons, and famous rings came to a blazing end on September 15, 2017. But the data gathered by the 13-year mission continues to provide scientists with new insight into the ringed planet. One of the highlights of the Cassini mission was its discovery of geysers […]
Solar System Mimics Ours; The Big Empty; Closest Human Relative?
Nearby Planetary System Mimics our Solar System A group of scientists using NASA’s airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy or SOFIA recently completed a study that confirmed their previous findings of a young and nearby planetary system. The researchers found that the system surrounding the star Epsilon Eridani, which is about 10.5 light years away […]
Pluto Flyby Data Feed Complete; Nearby Exoplanet May Have Oceans
New Horizon’s Sends Final Data of Pluto Flyby The final bits of data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its July 2015 flyby of Pluto were received this week by its mission operations center at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. More than 50 gigabytes of observational data was stored on the […]
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 […]
Study: Dinosaurs Roamed Before Saturn’s Moons and Rings Formed
A new study from researchers at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has found that most of Saturn’s 62 moons and perhaps even its celebrated rings may only be a hundred million years old. That’s more recent than when dinosaurs were roaming Earth. One of the study authors, Matija […]
Extrasolar Object’s Ring System is 200 Times Larger Than Saturn’s
One of our solar system’s most fascinating planets is Saturn. It’s the 2nd largest planet, after Jupiter. But what makes Saturn stand out from the others is the dazzling system of rings that surround it. Recently, a Dutch and an American astronomer found that an extrasolar object, discovered back in 2012, is surrounded by a […]
Science Scanner: Bacteria Go Dormant Until Antibiotics Wear Off, Spacecraft Dives by Saturn’s Ring, and Antartica’s Disappearing Penguins
NASA Launches Mission to Study Atmospheric C02 NASA’s successfully launched its Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base Wednesday morning. OCO-2’s mission, which is expected to last at least two years, will study atmospheric carbon dioxide, which scientists say is not only an important element of Earth’s carbon-cycle, but also the primary […]
Move Over Saturn, Scientists Find Rings Around Miniature Planet
Whenever you think of a planet with rings around it, Saturn probably comes to mind first. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune – the four outer giant planets – also have rings, but they’re not as bright, wide and colorful as Saturn’s. However, scientists in Chile now say they’ve discovered the first miniature planet with two rings circling it. The team […]
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Saturn’s Rings Are Raining on Planet
The old adage “April showers bring May flowers” may take on new meaning with the release of a new NASA-funded study tracking the rain of charged water particles from Saturn’s famous rings into the planet’s atmosphere. The study, led by the University of Leicester, England, found there’s more of this rain and its spread over […]