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Categories: Space: The Solar System
Published Parker Solar Probe offers stunning view of Venus
(via sciencedaily.com) NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured stunning views of Venus during its close flyby of the planet in July 2020. For more insight, the WISPR team planned a set of similar observations of the Venusian nightside during Parker Solar Probe's latest Venus flyby on Feb. 20, 2021. Mission team scientists expect to receive and process that data for analysis by the end of April.
Published Scientists image a bright meteoroid explosion in Jupiter's atmosphere
(via sciencedaily.com) From aboard the Juno spacecraft, an instrument observing auroras serendipitously spotted a bright flash above Jupiter's clouds last spring. The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) team studied the data and determined that they had captured a bolide, an extremely bright meteoroid explosion in the gas giant's upper atmosphere.
Published On the quest for other Earths
(via sciencedaily.com) An international research team has developed a new method for directly imaging smaller planets in the habitable zone of a neighboring star system. This opens up new possibilities in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Published Scientist proposes a new timeline for Mars terrains
(via sciencedaily.com) A scientist has updated Mars chronology models to find that terrains shaped by ancient water activity on the planet's surface may be hundreds of millions of years older than previously thought. This new chronology for Mars, based on the latest dynamical models for the formation and evolution of the solar system, is particularly significant as the days count down until NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover lands on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021.
Published Astronomers confirm solar system’s most distant known object is indeed Farfarout
(via sciencedaily.com) Astronomers have confirmed that a faint object discovered in 2018 and nicknamed 'Farfarout' is indeed the most distant object yet found in our Solar System. The object has just received its designation from the International Astronomical Union.
Published Thick lithosphere casts doubt on plate tectonics in Venus's geologically recent past
(via sciencedaily.com) A study of a giant impact crater on Venus suggests that its lithosphere was too thick to have had Earth-like plate tectonics, at least for much of the past billion years.
Published Purported phosphine on Venus more likely to be ordinary sulfur dioxide
(via sciencedaily.com) Astronomers revisited and comprehensively reinterpreted the radio telescope observations underlying a widely reported 2019 claim that phosphine gas was present in the atmosphere of Venus. In a paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, they report that sulfur dioxide, a common gas in the atmosphere of Venus, is likely what was detected instead of phosphine.
Published Puzzling six-exoplanet system with rhythmic movement challenges theories of how planets form
(via sciencedaily.com) Using a combination of telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO's VLT), astronomers have revealed a system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythm around their central star. The researchers believe the system could provide important clues about how planets, including those in the Solar System, form and evolve.
Published Astronomers discover first cloudless, Jupiter-like planet
(via sciencedaily.com) Astronomers have detected the first Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its observable atmosphere.
Published Saturn's tilt caused by its moons, researchers say
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists have just shown that the influence of Saturn's satellites can explain the tilt of the rotation axis of the gas giant. Their work also predicts that the tilt will increase even further over the next few billion years.
Published Saturn's moon Titan: Largest sea is 1,000-feet deep
(via sciencedaily.com) Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane. Astronomers have estimated that sea to be at least 1,000-feet deep near its center - enough room for a potential robotic submarine to explore.
Published Much of Earth's nitrogen was locally sourced
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists show evidence that nitrogen acquired during Earth's formation came from both the inner and outer regions of the protoplanetary disk. The study has implications for signs of potential habitability of exoplanets.
Published Testing the waters: Analyzing different solid states of water on other planets and moons
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists develop theoretical models to predict the presence of clathrate hydrates outside Earth, shedding light on the evolution of other atmospheres.
Published A 'super-puff' planet like no other
(via sciencedaily.com) Astronomers discover that the core mass of exoplanet WASP-107b is much lower than previously thought possible for a gas-giant planet.
Published Striped or spotted? Winds and jet streams found on the closest brown dwarf
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Using high-precision brightness measurements from NASA's TESS space telescope, astronomers found that the nearby brown dwarf Luhman 16B's atmosphere is dominated by high-speed, global winds akin to Earth's jet stream system. This global circulation determines how clouds are distributed in the brown dwarf's atmosphere, giving it a striped appearance.
Published Dark storm on Neptune reverses direction, possibly shedding a fragment
(via sciencedaily.com) Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope watched a mysterious dark vortex on Neptune abruptly steer away from a likely death on the giant blue planet.
Published Astronomers detect possible radio emission from exoplanet
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source By monitoring the cosmos with a radio telescope array, an international team of scientists has detected radio bursts emanating from the constellation Boötes. The signal could be the first radio emission collected from a planet beyond our solar system.
Published Device mimics life's first steps in outer space
(via sciencedaily.com) A new device promises insight into how the building blocks of life form in outer space. It mimics how molecules come together in the freezing darkness of interstellar space.
Published New superhighway system discovered in the Solar System
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have discovered a new superhighway network to travel through the Solar System much faster than was previously possible. Such routes can drive comets and asteroids near Jupiter to Neptune's distance in under a decade and to 100 astronomical units in less than a century. They could be used to send spacecraft to the far reaches of our planetary system relatively fast, and to monitor and understand near-Earth objects that might collide with our planet.
Published Image-based navigation could help spacecraft safely land on the moon
(via sciencedaily.com) Engineers have demonstrated how a series of lunar images can be used to infer the direction that a spacecraft is moving. This technique, sometimes called visual odometry, allows navigation information to be gathered even when a good map isn't available. The goal is to allow spacecraft to more accurately target and land at a specific location on the moon without requiring a complete map of its surface.