NASA recently used its powerful High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a breathtaking image of a dust devil traversing Syria Planum on Mars. One unique aspect of dust devils is their shadows can be used to estimate their height, which have been estimated to reach 20 km (12 miles) into the Martian sky. Studying dust devils on Mars is a regular occurrence for the scientific community and can help scientists better understand surface processes on other planets. But with the atmospheric pressure on Mars being only a fraction of Earth’s, what processes are responsible for producing dust devils?
Continue reading “NASA’s HiRISE Camera Recently Imaged a Martian Dust Devil. But Why Study Them?”A Direct Image of a Planet That’s Just Like Jupiter, Only Younger
In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of astronomers used the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawai?i Island to identify exoplanet, AF Lep b, which is three times the mass of Jupiter orbiting a Sun-sized star located approximately 87.5 light-years from Earth. What makes this discovery unique is AF Lep b is the first exoplanet discovered using a method called astrometry, which involves measuring unexpected, miniscule changes in the position of a star relative to nearby stars, which could indicate another object, an exoplanet, is causing gravitational tugs on its parent star.
Continue reading “A Direct Image of a Planet That’s Just Like Jupiter, Only Younger”NASA and LEGO Continue Brick-Solid Partnership with Perseverance and Ingenuity LEGO Models
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL) are busy keeping the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter functioning in Jezero Crater on Mars while these robotic explorers continue the search for ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. But some of those same engineers have also been busy working with LEGO designers on new one-tenth-scale LEGO Technic buildable models of these very same robotic explorers with the goal of inspiring the next generation of NASA scientists and engineers.
Continue reading “NASA and LEGO Continue Brick-Solid Partnership with Perseverance and Ingenuity LEGO Models”UK Professor Granted JWST Observation Time to Study Jupiter’s Upper Atmosphere
A professor from Northumbria University in the North East region of England has been granted telescope time with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) later this year to study Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, also known as its ionosphere. Being granted such access to JWST is extremely competitive which makes getting access to use its powerful instruments to study the cosmos a very high honor.
Continue reading “UK Professor Granted JWST Observation Time to Study Jupiter’s Upper Atmosphere”Artemis Accords Adds 25th, 26th, and 27th Signatory Countries
NASA recently welcomed the newest signatories of the Artemis Accords as Spain, Ecuador, and India became the 25th, 26th, and 27th countries, respectively, to sign on to the historic agreement for cooperation and partnership for space exploration, specifically pertaining to NASA’s Artemis program.
Continue reading “Artemis Accords Adds 25th, 26th, and 27th Signatory Countries”The Clouds of Venus Could Support Life
A recent study published in Astrobiology examines the likelihood of the planet Venus being able to support life within the thick cloud layer that envelopes it. This study holds the potential to help us better understand how life could exist under the intense Venusian conditions, as discussions within the scientific community about whether life exists on the second planet from the Sun continue to burn hotter than Venus itself.
Continue reading “The Clouds of Venus Could Support Life”This Hot Jupiter is Leaving a Swirling Tail of Helium in its Wake
In a recent study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers commissioned the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET), which is designed to study exoplanetary atmospheres, to examine how a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet is losing its helium atmosphere as it orbits its parent star, leaving tails of helium that extend approximately 25 times the diameter of the planet itself.
Continue reading “This Hot Jupiter is Leaving a Swirling Tail of Helium in its Wake”New Detailed Images of the Sun from the World’s Most Powerful Ground-Based Solar Telescope
Our Sun continues to demonstrate its awesome power in a breathtaking collection of recent images taken by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Daniel Inouye Solar Telescope, aka Inouye Solar Telescope, which is the world’s largest and most powerful ground-based solar telescope. These images, taken by one of Inouye’s first-generation instruments, the Visible-Broadband Imager (VBI), show our Sun in incredible, up-close detail.
Continue reading “New Detailed Images of the Sun from the World’s Most Powerful Ground-Based Solar Telescope”Jupiter’s “Stripes” Change Color. Now We Might Know Why
While Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is one of the most well-known spectacles in the solar system, Jupiter’s clouds and stripes that are responsible for the planet’s weather patterns are highly regarded, as well. Though not nearly as visible in an amateur astronomy telescope, Jupiter’s multicolored, rotating, and swirling cloud stripes are a sight to behold for any astronomy fan when seen in up-close images. And, what makes these stripes unique is they have been observed to change color from time to time, but the question of what causes this color change to occur has remained elusive.
Continue reading “Jupiter’s “Stripes” Change Color. Now We Might Know Why”