Even Eris and Makemake Could Have Geothermal Activity

By Brian Koberlein - February 18, 2024 01:39 PM UTC | Planetary Science
Astronomers have found evidence of geothermal activity across the Solar System, from planets like Mars, icy moons like Europa and Enceladus, and even dwarf planets like Pluto. They've used JWST to find evidence of geothermal activity in Kupiter Belt Objects Eris and Makemake. It was thought that these tiny worlds were long dead and cold, but they found evidence of elements on the surface that indicate geothermal activity, like geysers or cryovolcanoes.
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Euclid Begins its 6-Year Survey of the Dark Universe

By Brian Koberlein - February 16, 2024 12:50 PM UTC | Cosmology
ESA's Euclid mission was launched in July 2023 and has already sent home test images showing that its instruments are ready to go. Now, the space telescope begins mapping huge swaths of the sky, focusing on an area for 70 minutes at a time. Throughout its 6-year mission, it will complete 40,000 of these "pointings", eventually observing 1.5 billion galaxies in the sky. Astronomers will use this map to measure how dark matter and dark energy have changed over time.
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Another Clue Into the True Nature of Fast Radio Bursts

By Brian Koberlein - February 15, 2024 01:37 PM UTC | Physics
Astronomers have used two X-ray telescopes to study a neutron star and have discovered a link between it and mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBs). In October 2022, NASA's NICER and NuSTAR missions watched a type of neutron star called a magnetar for hours and detected the release of energy from its surface as it glitched, suddenly spinning faster. At the same time, radio telescopes detected an FRB from the star. These two events are connected.
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Passing Stars Changed the Orbits of Planets in the Solar System

By Brian Koberlein - February 14, 2024 02:13 PM UTC | Stars
We're light-years away from the closest stars, but in the billions of years of history in the Milky Way, our Sun has come much closer to other stars. For example, a star passes within 0.8 light-years every millions years and 0.16 light-years every 20 million years. These close passes have had a collective effect on the planets, shifting their orbits and helping to explain some of the eccentricities of the planets. Some of these might even have affected Earth's climate.
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