Space and astronomy news
The Martian atmosphere is a lot different than Earth’s. It’s over 95% carbon dioxide, and contains only trace amounts of oxygen and water vapor. But that trace amount of water vapor still plays a pronounced role in the climate.
Continue reading “NASA Supercomputer Simulates the Weather on Mars”
In recent years research into extremophiles has captured the interest of astrobiologists. The discovery of lifeforms in some of Earth’s most extreme environments has helped shape our thinking about extraterrestrial life. Life on other worlds may not need the kind of temperate, balanced environment that most life on Earth is adapted to.
Continue reading “Finally! Scientists Find a Place on Earth with Liquid Water But No Life”
It’s July 16th, 1969. The Apollo 11 crew have completed their training, and they’re in the Columbia Command Module atop a Saturn V rocket, to this day the most powerful rocket ever built. At 9:32 EDT the rocket lifts off, delivering the crew into Earth orbit 12 minutes after launch.
Continue reading “Here’s a Deepfake of Nixon Giving a Eulogy for the Apollo 11 Astronauts if Their Mission Failed”
NGC 6240 is a puzzle to astronomers. For a long time, astronomers thought the galaxy is a result of a merger between two galaxies, and that merger is evident in the galaxy’s form: It has an unsettled appearance, with two nuclei and extensions and loops.
Continue reading “Astronomers Find a Galaxy Containing Three Supermassive Black Holes at the Center”
One of the clearest signs of global warming, unless you live next to a glacier, are rising oceans. Now a joint mission involving the US and European countries is launching a pair of satellites to monitor the rising sea levels. The two satellites will monitor the oceans until 2030.
Continue reading “New Satellites Will Tell Us Exactly how Quickly the Oceans are Rising”
Not all rovers are designed to roam around on the surface of other worlds like Mars. One rover, at least, is aquatic; a necessary development if we’re going to explore Enceladus, Europa, and the Solar System’s other watery worlds. This rover is called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration, or BRUIE.
Continue reading “Aquatic Rover Drives on the Underside of the Ice in Antarctica”
A surtseyan eruption is a volcanic eruption in shallow water. It’s named after the island Surtsey, off the coast of iceland. In 2015, a surtseyan eruption in the Tongan Archipelago created the island Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai. Despite the odds, that island is still there almost five years later.
Continue reading “A Brand New Island in the Pacific has Survived 5 Years”
Astronomers at Cardiff University have done something nobody else has been able to do. A team, led by Dr. Phil Cigan from Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, has found the neutron star remnant from the famous supernova SN 1987A. Their evidence ends a 30 year search for the object.
Continue reading “Astronomers Finally Find the Neutron Star Leftover from Supernova 1987A”
NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover is heading to Mars soon to look for fossils. The ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars rover is heading to Mars in the same time-frame to carry out its own investigations into Martian habitability. To meet their mission objectives, the scientists working the missions will need to look at a lot of rocks and uncover and understand the clues those rocks hold.
To help those scientists prepare for the daunting task of analyzing and understanding Martian rocks from 160 million km (100 million miles) away, they’ve gone on a field trip to Australia to study stromatolites.
Continue reading “Scientists Search for Ancient Fossils in Australia, Practicing the Techniques They’ll Use on Mars”
What’s been long-suspected has now been confirmed: Jupiter’s moon Europa has water. As we’ve learned more about the outer Solar System in recent years, Europa has become a high-priority target in the search for life. With this discovery, NASA has just painted a big red bulls-eye on Jupiter’s smallest Galilean moon.
Continue reading “Water Vapor Was Just Found on Europa, More Evidence There’s Liquid Water Beneath All that Ice”