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Solar System

Displaying 1 - 30 of 33
Nate Church, Breitbart • Wed 2017 Nov 1, 7:51pm

…Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency… probe… detected a 31 mile (50 kilometers) “lava tube” that runs deep beneath the moon’s “Marius Hills.” … could be crucial to the goal of creating… large-scale lunar bases…

Ollie Gillman, Mail (UK) • Tue 2016 Aug 2, 9:43am

An asteroid set to narrowly miss Earth could cause 'immense suffering and death' years later if its orbit is changed when it passes dangerously near to our planet. …called Bennu…crosses Earth's orbit once every six years… set to pass between the moon and our planet in 2135.

Scientists are worried the 500-metre wide asteroid's orbit could be tweaked by Earth's gravity as it passes by, causing it to smash into our planet later in the century.…

Joel B. Pollak, Breitbart • Tue 2016 Jul 5, 3:11pm

…The Juno spacecraft, which will orbit Jupiter from pole-to-pole and study the gas giant from a relatively low altitude, was launched nearly five years ago, in August 2011. It hurtled through the solar system before arriving near the largest planet Monday evening, firing up its engines, and switching its orbit from the sun to the gas giant.…

Abigail Beall, Mail (UK) • Mon 2016 Jun 27, 10:21pm

…Nasa's New Horizons probe flew close to Pluto last year, revealing clues the dwarf planet might once have had a liquid ocean sloshing around under its icy crust.

The ocean, which may have hosted alien life, was thought to have frozen over millions of years ago.

But new analysis shows the ocean beneath the surface is still liquid now - raising hopes that signs of life could yet be discovered on the dwarf planet.…

Tech Times • Fri 2016 Mar 18, 7:37pm

Ceres is a dwarf planet with a bizarre surface, marked by mysterious bright spots that have left astronomers perplexed. Now, these odd features appear to be changing over time, and scientists are left with no way to adequately explain the phenomenon.…

Fox News • Wed 2016 Feb 10, 4:31pm

…Mars video
Published February 09, 2016 FoxNews.com
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(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Want to know what life is like on Mars? NASA has released an incredible 360-degree video that lets you scroll around the red planet’s surface.

The video, which was taken by a camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover, was posted to YouTube Monday by the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Related: NASA’s ‘flying saucer’ in pictures

“This view of the downwind face of ‘Namib Dune’ on Mars covers 360 degrees, including a portion of Mount Sharp on the horizon,” explained the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The site is part of the dark-sand ‘Bagnold Dunes’ field along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp.”…

Fox News • Tue 2016 Jan 19, 6:49pm

NASA has released an incredible image of the haze layers in Pluto’s atmosphere taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. The processed image is the highest-resolution color look yet at the haze layers…

Saturn
Jet Propulsion Laboratory • Wed 2015 Oct 21, 6:56pm

…taken on October 14, 2015 and received on Earth October 15, 2015.…

Strange terrain on Saturn's moon Cassini.
Ian O'Neill, Discovery • Fri 2015 Sep 4, 6:33am

…it really does look like a spoon hanging in the air, just above the surface of some layered rock. But as Mars is devoid of any civilization, advanced or otherwise, that is capable of manufacturing said spoon, there’s probably a more logical answer.…

Rob Gutro, NASA • Fri 2015 Aug 7, 8:57am

A NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a unique view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth last month. The series of test images shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the moon that is never visible from Earth.…

Saturn
Charles Q. Choi, Space.com • Thu 2015 Jun 11, 10:39am

A giant ring around Saturn is even larger than thought, spanning an area of space nearly 7,000 times larger than Saturn itself… “We knew it was the biggest ring, but know we find it’s even bigger than we thought, new and improved….”

Saturn
Preston Dyches, NASA • Fri 2015 Jun 5, 12:15pm

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has returned images from its final close approach to Saturn's oddball moon Hyperion, upholding the moon's reputation as one of the most bizarre objects in the solar system. The views show Hyperion's deeply impact-scarred surface, with many craters displaying dark material on their floors.…

Saturn
Mike Wall, Space.com • Tue 2015 May 12, 2:11pm

Saturn's icy moon Enceladus is looking better and better as a potential abode for alien life.

Chemical reactions that free up energy that could potentially support a biosphere have occurred — and perhaps still are occurring — deep within Enceladus' salty subsurface ocean, a new study suggests.…

Elizabeth Landau, NASA • Tue 2015 May 12, 2:08pm

This animation shows a sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 4, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers), in its RC3 mapping orbit. …The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015.…

Meteor
Nathan Rao, Express UK • Tue 2015 May 12, 10:25am

…Worried astronomers warned 1999 FN53, which is an eighth of the size of Mount Everest, will skim the Earth in TWO DAYS.

A collision would be nothing short of catastrophic triggering mass destruction, earthquakes and global extinction.

The monster is more than TEN TIMES bigger than other meteorites currently visible on NASA’s Near Earth Object radar.…

Ted Thornhill, Daily Mail UK • Sun 2015 Mar 22, 5:59pm

Scientists have long been puzzled by the difference in topography between different sides of the moon, with the near side being flat and the far side much more mountainous.

Now astronomers believe that the moon was struck by a huge object in a ‘big splat’, which gave our solar companion its giant peaks and coated one side of it with a crust tens of kilometres thick.…

Sun
Grunt of Monte Cristo • Sun 2015 Feb 15, 9:12pm

"Goddard Space Flight Center just released this collection of images from the SDO mission on it’s fifth anniversary." [Video at link]

Eric Berger, Houston Chronicle • Mon 2012 Oct 8, 8:27pm

New data from the spacecraft, which I will discuss below, indicate Voyager 1 may have exited the solar system for good. If true, this would mark a truly historic moment for the human race — sending a spacecraft beyond the edge of our home solar system.

At last check, NASA scientists said they were not yet ready to officially declare that Voyager 1 had officially exited the solar system by crossing the heliopause.

meteor
AP • Wed 2012 May 30, 10:33am
…16-foot-long space rock, discovered on Memorial Day, passed by early Tuesday at a distance of 8,950 miles… sixth closest asteroid approach… Monday, another asteroid, measuring 69 feet across, flew by at a distance of 32,000 miles….
Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com • Fri 2012 Apr 27, 1:54pm

"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought," Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at London's Queen Mary University, said in a statement. "These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles in size, creating a spectacular show." The F ring is held in check by two tiny moons, Prometheus and Pandora, which weave inside and outside the outer ring. Sometimes these moons perturb the ring, creating channels and snowballs. Now scientists think that some of these snowballs survive to become the weird objects punching new holes in the ring. [Video here, after commercial]

breitbart.com • Sun 2011 Aug 7, 1:10pm

The Moon's highlands, long a mystery, may have been thrown up billions of years ago by a slow-motion collision with a smaller companion moon knocked off its orbit.... At least one such mini-moon, about a third the diameter of the one we see today, could have been suspended between the gravitational pulls of the Moon and Earth for tens of millions of years, they calculated. Eventually, however, it would have lost its moorings and crashed into the Moon.... "According to our simulations, a large 'moon-to-Moon' size ratio and a subsonic impact velocity lead to an accretionary pile rather than a crater," Jutzi and Asphaug concluded. This scenario would also help explain why the farside's crust is so much thicker, and why certain minerals are concentrated there

hosted.ap.org • Tue 2011 May 24, 9:30pm

Spirit has been incommunicado for more than a year despite daily calls by NASA. The cause of Spirit's silence may never be known, but it's likely the bitter Martian winter damaged its electronics, preventing the six-wheel rover from waking up. The space agency tried every trick to listen for Spirit to no avail. Project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the last commands will be sent up Wednesday. Though orbiting spacecraft will continue to listen through the end of May, chances are slim that Spirit will respond.

space.com • Tue 2011 Mar 29, 7:26pm

The first spacecraft ever to circle Mercury has beamed home the first-ever photo taken of the small rocky planet from orbit.

space.com • Fri 2011 Mar 18, 11:37pm

NASA's Messenger probe is set to make history tomorrow night (March 17) when it becomes the first spacecraft ever to enter into orbit around the planet Mercury. …will map Mercury's surface in detail, as well as investigate the planet's composition, magnetic environment and tenuous atmosphere, among other features.

breitbart.com • Wed 2009 Jun 24, 3:05pm

SaturnHuge geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty sea below its surface, boosting the odds of extraterrestrial life in our own Solar System

sciencedaily.com • Mon 2009 Jun 22, 10:48pm

Suna jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

sciencedaily.com • Mon 2009 Jun 22, 10:44pm

Sunfirst-ever comprehensive computer model of sunspots. The resulting visuals capture both scientific detail and remarkable beauty.

eurekalert.org • Thu 2009 Jun 18, 1:38pm

the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada

sciencenews.org • Wed 2009 Jun 10, 3:07pm

Study calculates the odds that two planets collide or one crashes into sun in the next 5 billion years... For the new study, the researchers started with the best known information about the position and orbital velocity of each of the 10 bodies, and marched simulations forward in nine-day steps for the next 5 billion years, the projected life of the sun... Mercury collides with Venus about 1.76 billion years from now...

news.bbc.co.uk • Wed 2009 Apr 22, 2:29pm

SunThe Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. The observations are baffling astronomers... Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity....

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