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Categories: Energy: Fossil Fuels, Space: The Solar System

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Astronomers have discovered vast comet belts surrounding two nearby planetary systems known to host only Earth-to-Neptune-mass worlds. The comet reservoirs could have delivered life-giving oceans to the innermost planets.

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Dwarf planet Makemake is about two thirds of the size of Pluto, and travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto but closer to the Sun than Eris, the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System. Previous observations of chilly Makemake have shown it to be similar to its fellow dwarf planets, leading some astronomers to expect its atmosphere, if present, to be similar to that of Pluto. However, the new study now shows that, like Eris, Makemake is not surrounded by a significant atmosphere.

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Have you taken an interesting astronomical photo this year? From planets and moons to the Sun, stars and galaxies, we’d like you to send us your images to feature as our Space Science Image of the Week on 31 December.

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On Nov. 13, 2012, the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 9:04 pm EST. This flare is classified as an M6 flare. M-class flares are the weakest flares that can still cause some space weather effects near Earth. They can cause brief radio blackouts at the poles. This M-class flare caused a radio blackout categorized according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association's Space Weather Scales as R2 -- or "moderate" -- on a scale of R1 to R5. It has since subsided.

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Every six seconds, for many millions of years, comets have been colliding near a star visible to the naked eye, astronomers report.

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The sun emitted a significant solar flare on Oct. 22, 2012, peaking at 11:17 pm EDT. The flare came from an active region on the left side of the sun that has been numbered AR 1598, which has already been the source of a number of weaker flares. This flare was classified as an X1.8-class flare.

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Among the oddities of the outer solar system are the middle-sized moons of Saturn, a half-dozen icy bodies dwarfed by Saturn's massive moon Titan. According to a new model for the origin of the Saturn system, these middle-sized moons were spawned during giant impacts in which several major satellites merged to form Titan.

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In 1986, when Voyager swept past Uranus, the probe’s portraits of the planet were “notoriously bland,” disappointing scientists, yielding few new details of the planet and its atmosphere, and giving it a reputation as a bore of the solar system.

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Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet's atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow.

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Stormy weather on the sun drives the glistening aurorae in our clear night skies.

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The sun erupted with a wide, Earth-directed coronal mass ejection on Sept. 27, 2012 at 10:25 p.m. EDT.

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New movies of the transit of Venus on June 6, 2012, viewed from two different locations on Earth, clearly show the parallax effects that have made Venus transits so important historically. The results were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid, Spain.

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On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, with a glancing blow. causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3.

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Thirty-five years ago Aug. 20, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, the first Voyager spacecraft to launch, departed on a journey that would make it the only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune and the longest-operating NASA spacecraft ever. Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, that launched 16 days later on Sept. 5, 1977, are still going strong, hurtling away from our sun. Mission managers are eagerly anticipating the day when they break on through to the other side -- the space between stars.

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In August of 2005, the Mars Express spacecraft was dutifully sending back data on the stratigraphy of the upper regions of the Martian crust when its signal kept getting interrupted. Scientists wanted to know why. Now, researchers have provided a clear answer.

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A new image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on July 19, 2012 of an M7.7 class solar flare. The image represents light in the 131 Angstrom wavelength, which is particularly good for seeing flares, and which is typically colorized in teal.

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Over the July 14-15, 2012 weekend and through the early morning of July 16, Earth experienced what's called a geomagnetic storm, which happens when the magnetic bubble around Earth, the magnetosphere, quickly changes shape and size in response to incoming energy from the sun. In this case that energy came from a coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with a July 12 X-class flare.

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A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

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Active Region 1515 has now spit out 12 M-class flares since July 3. Early in the morning of July 5, 2012, there was an M6.1 flare. It peaked at 7:44 AM EDT. This caused a moderate -- classified as R2 on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather scale -- radio blackout that has since subsided.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An active region on the sun, numbered AR 1504, rotated into view over the left side of the sun on June 10, 2012. The region fired off two M-class flares and two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on June 13 and June 14, 2012.