Page 3 - Planets Moons News Today

 E-Mail IMAGE: An illustration of early Earth, as it would have looked around 4 billion years ago view more  Credit: Lucy Entwisle Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, geologists say. Minerals delivered to Earth in meteorites more than 4 billion years ago have long been advocated as key ingredients for the development of life on our planet. Scientists believed minimal amounts of these minerals were als...

In a comment published today in Nature Astronomy, Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, challenges assumptions about the possibility of modern life on Mars held by many in the scientific community. Cabrol theorizes that not only life could still be present on Mars today, but it could also be much more widespread and accessible than previously believed.

A new study by University of Chicago and Stanford University researchers suggests that hot, rocky exoplanets could not only develop atmospheres full of water vapor, but keep them for long stretches.

Credit: Pavel Odinev (Skoltech) Researchers from Skoltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have analyzed several dozen options to pick the best one in terms of performance and costs for the last mile of a future mission to the Moon - actually delivering astronauts to the lunar surface and back up to the safety of the orbiting lunar station. The paper was published in the journal Acta Astronautica. Ever since December 1972, when the crew of Apollo 17 left the lunar surface, humans ...

Researchers at UCL have solved a major piece of the puzzle that makes up the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a hand-powered mechanical device that was used to predict astronomical events.

 E-Mail IMAGE: An infrared image of the dust clouds in the Cocoon region taken with the Spitzers Space Telescopes IR photometer. The HAWC TeV gamma-ray excess (color from green to yellow to... view more  Credit: TeV: Binita Hona (HAWC Collaboration), IR: Hora et. al, Spitzers Growing Legacy, ASP Conference Series, 2010, P. Ogle, ed. LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 11, 2021--A long-time question in astrophysics appears to finally be answered, thanks to a collection of large, high-tech water t...

 E-Mail IMAGE: Weathering of silicate rocks is part of the so-called carbon cycle that maintains a temperate climate on Earth over long periods of time. view more  Credit: © Universität Bern / University of Bern, Illustration: Jenny Leibundgut The conditions on Earth are ideal for life. Most places on our planet are neither too hot nor too cold and offer liquid water. These and other requirements for life, however, delicately depend on the right composition of the atmosphere. Too li...

 E-Mail Astronomers have discovered new hints of a giant, scorching-hot planet orbiting Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. The research, published this month in The Astronomical Journal, was led by University of Colorado Boulder student Spencer Hurt, an undergraduate in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. It focuses on an iconic and relatively young star, Vega, which is part of the constellation Lyra and has a mass twice that of our own sun. This celestial...

Chemistry is helping us figure out how life got started on Earth and is giving us molecules to look for on other planets. In this episode of Reactions, we break down what life is and how likely we are to find it out in the cosmos: https://youtu.be/f44OWlsLeT0.

 E-Mail IMAGE: The rotating furnace used to make light-weight, advanced telescope mirrors is located underneath of the stands of University of Arizonas football stadium. In this image, the ovens 33-foot diameter lid... view more  Credit: Damien Jemison, Giant Magellan Telescope - GMTO Corporation At 3 p.m. on March 5, a gigantic furnace will slowly start spinning underneath the stands of Arizona Stadium at the University of Arizona. Fire-engine red, massive in size and resembling a sc...