Earth & Environment - Aug 18, 2010 8:38 - 0 Comments

Glimpse of prehistoric Earth in Arctic rock

McGILL (CAN)—Geochemical evidence from volcanic rocks collected on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic suggests that a region of mantle beneath the Earth’s surface has largely escaped billions of years of melting and geological churning. (more…)

Science & Technology - Aug 4, 2010 10:23 - 0 Comments

NASA telescope spots buckyballs in space

CORNELL (US)—Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Spectrograph have detected fullerenes, or buckyballs—carbon structures long thought to be likely features of the interstellar medium, but never before observed. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jul 29, 2010 11:08 - 5 Comments

Alien planets dance around dying star

CALTECH/U. FLORIDA (US)—While most extrasolar planets orbit too far from one another to feel each other’s gravity, researchers have found two systems with pairs of gas giant planets locked in an orbital embrace. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jul 22, 2010 14:49 - 0 Comments

Changing lake depths on Saturn’s Titan

CALTECH (US)—For the first time, scientists have found compelling evidence of lake-level changes on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, that are very similar to the rise and fall of Earth lake levels. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jul 13, 2010 13:25 - 0 Comments

Why track Saturn’s ‘propeller moons’?

CORNELL (US)—Researchers have been tracking what are likely dozens of small moons orbiting within the outer edge of Saturn’s A ring—the outermost of the planet’s large, dense rings—searching for new clues about how planets form and grow around stars in young solar systems. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jun 14, 2010 14:46 - 2 Comments

Ocean may have covered one-third of Mars

U. COLORADO (US)—A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago. The volume of the ancient Mars ocean would have been about 10 times less than current volume of Earth’s oceans, researchers say. Mars is slightly more than half the size of Earth. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jun 14, 2010 11:01 - 0 Comments

First look deep inside infant solar systems

U. ARIZONA (US)—Astronomers have observed in unprecedented detail the processes giving rise to stars and planets in nascent solar systems. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jun 4, 2010 10:58 - 0 Comments

Early haze likely shaded Earth from UV

U. COLORADO (US)—A thick organic haze that enshrouded early Earth several billion years ago may have been similar to the haze now hovering above Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and would have protected primordial life on the planet from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jun 3, 2010 9:20 - 0 Comments

Searching for exoplanets that stay in the zone

U. WASHINGTON (US)—New computer models suggest that some planets orbiting nearby stars similar to the sun might fluctuate between being habitable and being inhospitable to life because of the forces exerted by giant neighbors with eccentric orbits. (more…)

Science & Technology - May 27, 2010 14:09 - 0 Comments

Mysteries of Martian ice cap solved

TEXAS-AUSTIN (US)—Scientists have reconstructed the formation of two curious features in the northern ice cap of Mars—a chasm larger than the Grand Canyon and a series of spiral troughs—solving a pair of mysteries dating back four decades—while also finding new evidence of climate change on Mars. (more…)

Science & Technology - May 26, 2010 12:58 - 0 Comments

Wacky planetary system hints to violent past

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US)—Researchers have reported the discovery of a planetary system “out of whack,” where the orbits of two planets are at a steep angle to each other. (more…)

Science & Technology - Jan 11, 2010 13:49 - 0 Comments

Far-out rocky planet is volcanic wasteland

U. WASHINGTON—When scientists confirmed in October that they had detected the first rocky planet outside our solar system, it advanced the longtime quest to find an Earth-like planet. (more…)

Science & Technology - Dec 30, 2009 13:26 - 4 Comments

Putting a lander on Earth’s ‘evil twin’

U. COLORADO (US)—What would it take to land a spacecraft on Venus? NASA has asked a research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder to help answer that question with a detailed, one-year concept study to examine the planet’s surface, climate, and atmosphere—and to predict its ultimate fate in the solar system. (more…)

Science & Technology - Dec 21, 2009 17:14 - 0 Comments

Brown dwarf pair mystifies astronomers

PENN STATE (US)—Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers. (more…)

Science & Technology - Dec 18, 2009 18:27 - 0 Comments

Fog found on Titan

CALTECH (US)—Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system—aside from our home planet, Earth—with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. (more…)

Science & Technology - Nov 30, 2009 14:21 - 4 Comments

Saturn’s oblong orbit linked to Titan’s lakes

CALTECH (US)—The eccentricity of Saturn’s orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet’s largest moon, Titan. (more…)

Earth & Environment - Oct 5, 2009 19:08 - 0 Comments

Alfalfa sprouts recreate meandering stream

UC BERKELEY (US)—Researchers report the first experimental creation of meanders in a flume—a scaled-down model of a natural channel using alfalfa sprouts to represent vegetated stream banks. The experiments reveal some of the necessary conditions to form meanders on Earth and throughout the solar system. (more…)

Science & Technology - Oct 5, 2009 12:01 - 0 Comments

Model suggests it’s raining rocks on exoplanet

WASHINGTON-ST. LOUIS (US)—An exoplanet discovered last February by the COROT space telescope is close enough to its star that its “day-face” is hot enough to melt rock. Theoretical models suggest the planet has a gaseous-rock atmosphere and boiling oceans on its surface. (more…)

Posts Tagged ‘planetary science’