Category Astronomy/Space

Approaching its 3rd anniversary of Mars landing, the rover has found a target unlike anything it has studied before – bedrock with surprisingly high levels of silica. Silica is a rock-forming compound containing silicon and oxygen, commonly found on Earth as quartz. This area lies just downhill from a geological contact zone the rover has been studying near “Marias Pass” on lower Mount Sharp.

>>Curiosity team decided to back up the rover 151 feet from the geological contact zone to investigate the high-silica target dubbed “Elk.” The decision was made after they analyzed data from 2 instruments, the laser-firing Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), which show elevated amounts of silicon and hydrogen, respectively...

IMAGE: Artist’s impression of Gaia14aae.
Credit: Marisa Grove/Institute of Astronomy

It is a type of 2-star system known as a Cataclysmic Variable, where one super dense white dwarf star is stealing gas from its companion star, effectively ‘cannibalising’ it.The system could also be an important laboratory for studying ultra-bright supernova explosions, which are a vital tool for measuring the expansion of the Universe. The system, named Gaia14aae, is 730 light years away in Draco constellation. It was discovered by the ESA’s Gaia satellite in August 2014 when it suddenly became 5 times brighter over the course of a single day.

>>Additional observations made by the Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA), a collaboration of amateur and professional astronomers, found the system is a rare e...

A new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100M yrs old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the center-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

This fascinating icy plains region – resembling frozen mud cracks on Earth — has been informally named “Sputnik Planum” (Sputnik Plain) after the Earth’s first artificial satellite. It has a broken surface of irregularly-shaped segments, roughly 12 miles across, bordered by what appear to be shallow troughs...

IMAGE1: The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. “We just learned that in the north polar cap, methane ice is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice resulting in strong absorption of infrared light,” …In one of the visually dark equatorial patches, the methane ice has shallower infrared absorptions indicative of a different texture. “The spectrum appears as if the ice is less diluted in N…or that it has a different texture in that area.”

IMAGE2: New close-up images of a region near Pluto’s equator reveal a giant surprise – a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet above the surface of the icy body...