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Why is Mars So Dry?

Since Earth and Mars were probably formed much the same way; through the accretion of rocky material from the inner solar system, they should have roughly the same amount of water, but Mars is pretty much bone dry compared to the Earth. So what happened to make it so dry? Some scientists believe that Mars used to have the same amount of water as Earth, but it evaporated into space. Others believe that the Red Planet never had much water in the first place; that it started out as a collection of dry materials from the asteroid belt.

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Rosetta Launch Date Approaching

At the end of February 2004, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft is expected to launch on board an Ariane 5 launcher from the space centre in Kourou, French Guiana. Rosetta will travel 675 million kilometres, including multiple planet flybys to reach Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 – it will orbit the comet and then actually land on its surface. This journey will be a long time coming, since Rosetta has been in development since 1997, and missed several launch opportunities.

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Astronomers Find Five Double Asteroid Systems

Image credit: Cornell According to researchers from Cornell University, binary asteroids – where a small asteroid orbits a larger one – are actually pretty common in Earth crossing orbits. In fact, they think that gravitational interactions with the Earth might actually help to cause the arrangement. The researchers estimate that 16% of asteroids larger than …

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