Uranus. Venus. Mercury. Jupiter. Saturn. Astrophile: The outermost ocean in the solar system - space - 25 May 2012. Astrophile is our weekly column on curious cosmic objects, from the solar system to the far reaches of the multiverse Object: Triton's subsurface oceanTemperature: About -90 °C A new day dawns on Triton.
It's going to be a cold one, much like the last. And the one before that… and every day since the moon settled into its present orbit around Neptune. Even the volcanoes here spew out cold gases and liquid water rather than hot magma. At first glance, Triton seems to be just another icy moon – a featureless, barren world spinning around Neptune, the outermost planet of our solar system. For one thing, it orbits Neptune backwards, moving in the opposite direction to Neptune's rotation.
The Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Triton in 1989, sending back images of the moon's frozen surface. Its surface ice is unique, too: largely composed of nitrogen, with some cantaloupe-textured terrain, and a polar cap of frozen methane. We know that Triton was captured by Neptune. More From New Scientist. Space Shuttle Discovery - 360VR Images. Voyager space probes show outsiders' view of Milky Way - space - 01 December 2011.
By Lisa Grossman The twin Voyager probes are so far from the sun that they can see a kind of light from the Milky Way that we on Earth cannot.
The observations could act as a Rosetta stone for understanding star formation in more distant and ancient galaxies. Voyager 1 Spacecraft Enters New Region of Solar System. Want to stay on top of all the space news?
Follow @universetoday on Twitter. Scope.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object) New planet record suggests our solar system is normal. Lisa Grossman, reporter (Image: J.
Pinfield) It's a shame about Pluto. If it still counted as a planet, our sun would still be among the record-holders in the planet stakes. Instead, that crown may have just been stolen by HD 10180, a star 130 light years away that has mass, temperature, brightness and chemistry similar to the sun. Surprise! IBEX Finds No Bow ‘Shock’ Outside our Solar System. Want to stay on top of all the space news?
Follow @universetoday on Twitter New data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) shows that the heliosphere moves through space too slowly to form a bow shock. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.
The Moon. Where Did the Sun Come From? The Search Continues. M67.
Credit: ThinkingCamera/Flickr via CC We all come from somewhere. If you wind the clock back far enough, we all come from the same place. Sometime about 4.5 billion years ago, the sun was born, and a disk of debris swirling around it soon coalesced into Earth and the rest of the planets. But where did that happen?
One of the leading candidates for the sun’s birthplace has probably been ruled out, according to a study in the March issue of The Astronomical Journal. Most stars seem to have been born in clusters or groups. Bárbara Pichardo of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and her colleagues in Mexico, the U.S., Italy and Germany looked into a possible solar origin within M67, a cluster of stars about 3,000 light-years away. But that may just be coincidence. How Did Comet Lovejoy Survive Its Trip Around The Sun?
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Follow @universetoday on Twitter Comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) re-emerging from behind the Sun on Dec. 15, 2011. (NASA/SDO) Astrophile: Ferocious superwind will seal sun's doom - space - 12 April 2012. Astrophile is our weekly column on curious cosmic objects, from the solar system to the far reaches of the multiverse Object: stellar superwindsLocation: red giant stars; our futureCharacteristics: dusty, dense and doom-laden The sun's dying breath will be no feeble wheeze.
Instead, our star will go out in a blustering rage, launching a series of stellar sandstorms into the night. Humans are unlikely to be around in 7 or 8 billion years to witness this cosmic gale, but if we are it will be awe-inspiring: far faster than any Earthly hurricane, far denser than the solar wind blowing past Earth today and lasting more than 10,000 years. Astronomers Measure Sunlight’s Shove. Want to stay on top of all the space news?
Follow @universetoday on Twitter The physical force of sunlight on a moving asteroid has been measured by NASA scientists, providing information on how to better plot these Earth-passing worlds’ future paths. Our Sun Moves More Slowly Than Thought. The sun is zipping through interstellar space more slowly than once thought, suggesting the giant shock wave long suspected of existing in front of the sun is not actually there, researchers say.
These new findings may influence what scientists know about high-energy cosmic rays that can endanger astronauts, they added. Dark Figures Do An Eerie Dance On The Sun. Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this video on March 27 – 28 of two large areas of “dark” plasma on the Sun’s limb, twisting and spiraling in our star’s complex magnetic field. The southern region bears an uncanny resemblance to three figures swaying to some spooky, unheard music… a real “danse macabre” on the Sun! Imaged in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, relatively cool solar prominences can appear dark against the much hotter material just above the Sun’s photosphere. Electric ice a shock to the solar system - space - 25 August 2011. ELECTRIC ice may pervade space. This strange form of water is more persistent than was previously thought, and the discovery could change our understanding of how the solar system formed.
It might even give ice a new role in the emergence of the complex organic molecules needed for life. In a single molecule of water - H2O - there is a charge separation. That's because the two positively charged hydrogen atoms cluster at one end, away from the single negatively charged oxygen. However, the charges get mixed up when ordinary ice, known as ice Ih, forms. Cool ice to about 60 kelvin (-213.15 °C), though, and the hydrogens rearrange themselves so they are aligned. That polarisation makes ice XI clump together much more readily than ordinary ice 1h, in the same way that dust particles are drawn together by static electricity. A shock to the solar system. Supernovashock shock No one was around when the solar system formed, but some scientists say it began with a blast. And they mean a big one: A nearby supernova, or explosion of a giant star, may have provided the oomph that jump-started the formation of the sun and planets.
Scientists suspect that more than 4.5 billion years ago, our swath of space had no sun, no asteroids, no planets, and no arguments about Pluto. Were you to go back in time, you’d instead find a large cloud of cold gas and dust. Earth's wild ride: Our voyage through the Milky Way - space - 05 December 2011. Read full article Continue reading page |1|2|3 Our planet has faced many dangers on its epic journey around the galaxy. The evidence of our turbulent history might lie buried on the moon FOR billions of years, Earth has been on a perilous journey through space.
As our planet whirls around the sun, the whole solar system undertakes a far grander voyage, circling our island universe every 200 million years. Many of these marvels may well have been deadly, raining lethal radiation onto Earth's surface or hurling huge missiles into our path. As yet, this is guesswork. But a repository of our cosmic memories might be close at hand. A long time ago, in this galaxy but far, far away... the sky is packed with bright stars and glowing nebulae, far denser than today's tame heavens.
Today, the solar system travels a near-circular path around our galaxy, keeping a constant 30,000 light years between us and the seething galactic core. Supernova May Have Kicked Off Solar System. Jupiter's heart is dissolving - space - 22 December 2011. Even the mighty can lose heart. New calculations suggest that Jupiter's rocky core is dissolving like an antacid tablet plopped in water. The work could help explain why its core appears smaller and its atmosphere richer in heavy elements than predicted. Giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have begun their lives as solid bodies of rock and ice. When they grew to about 10 times the mass of Earth, their gravity pulled in gas from their birth nebula, giving them thick atmospheres made mainly of hydrogen.
Curiously, some studies have suggested that Jupiter's core may weigh less than 10 Earths, while the core of its smaller sibling Saturn packs a bigger punch at 15 to 30 Earths. Rock, Rattle And Roll. Most scientists don’t wear protective headgear while giving talks. Astrophile: Two craters that launched 1000 meteorites - space - 11 May 2012. Huge Asteroid Vesta Actually Is an Ancient Protoplanet. New observations from a NASA spacecraft show that the huge asteroid Vesta is a battered protoplanet left over from the solar system's early days, with a unique mix of characteristics unknown from any other space rock. Vesta Seems More Planet Than Asteroid. Evidence of a Late Heavy Bombardment Occuring in Another Solar System.
Cloud Formation May Be Linked to Cosmic Rays. From Nature magazine It sounds like a conspiracy theory: 'cosmic rays' from deep space might be creating clouds in Earth's atmosphere and changing the climate. Yet an experiment at CERN, Europe's high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, is finding tentative evidence for just that.
The findings, published today in Nature, are preliminary, but they are stoking a long-running argument over the role of radiation from distant stars in altering the climate. For a century, scientists have known that charged particles from space constantly bombard Earth. Known as cosmic rays, the particles are mostly protons blasted out of supernovae. Milky Way brims with planets - space - 11 January 2012. Carl Sagan would have loved it: not only are there billions and billions of stars in our galaxy, but every star may also harbour a planet. Recent Geologic Activity on the Moon? The Dark Side of The Milky Way. Although astronomers only slowly came to realize dark matter’s importance in the universe, for me personally it happened in an instant. Gas Guzzler: Cloud Could Soon Meet Its Demise in Milky Way's Black Hole.
All of us, not just astronomers, have an obvious fascination with what happens when matter gets sucked into the maw of a black hole. Usually, we've had to watch from the equivalent of partial-view bleacher seats as these cosmic garbage disposals do their thing in the Milky Way and in distant galaxies. For once, though, we may have procured primo seats behind the dugout. Dual Interpretations: Milky Way's Outer Fringe of Stars Sparks Disagreement.
It's well known that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, a swirl of stars in an extended, many-armed disk. Billions of Habitable Worlds Likely in the Milky Way. How Big Is Our Galaxy? Scientists to catch a black hole.