Credit: CC0 Public Domain Back in 2007, I talked with Rob Manning, engineer extraordinaire at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he told me something shocking. Even though he had successfully…
Category: Planetary Science
A new way to detect daisy worlds
Daisy Worlds are planets where the biosphere regulates the environment to keep it habitable. Earth is one, sort of. Can we use information theory to identify agnostic biosignatures from these…
Trump and Musk could redefine US space strategy
Donald Trump’s fascination with space is nothing new — during his first term he created Space Force and launched the Artemis program to return to the moon. Should NASA return…
Solar wind power likely governs Uranus’ thermosphere temperature
Uranus captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Uranus’s upper atmosphere has been cooling for decades—and now scientists have shown why. Observations from Earth have shown Uranus’…
Basalt samples from Chang’e-6 mission offer insights on lunar farside volcanism
Distribution of distinct volcanic episodes on the moon’s farside. The remote sensing image highlights the Chang’e-6 landing site along with nearby mare and cryptomare basaltic units. Credit: Yang Muhan Basalt…
How the aurora borealis captivated 18th-century minds
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Since May this year, the aurora borealis (northern lights), has at times been visible further south than usual over Britain, sparking amazement and fascination. Social media…
Astronomers defy the zone of avoidance to find hundreds of new galaxies
Observed galaxies within the Vela supercluster. Credit: Sambatriniaina H. A. Rajohnson, et al There is a region of the sky where astronomers fear to look. Filled with dark clouds of…
A formula for life? New model calculates chances of intelligent beings in our universe and beyond
How the same region of the universe would look in terms of the amount of stars for different values of the dark energy density. Clockwise, from top left, no dark…
Right now, the sun is far more active than predicted—and small satellites are paying the price
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Last week, three tiny Australian satellites from Curtin University’s Binar Space Program burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. That was always going to happen. In fact, Binar…
Swirling polar vortices likely exist on the sun, new research finds
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Like the Earth, the sun likely has swirling polar vortices, according to new research led by the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research…
