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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Webb Detects Water Vapor in Rocky Planet-Forming One

    July 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist’s concept portrays the star PDS 70 and its inner protoplanetary disk. New measurements by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have detected water vapor at distances of less than 100 million miles from the star – the region where rocky, terrestrial planets may be forming. This is the first detection of water in the terrestrial region of a disk already known to host two or more protoplanets, one of which is shown at upper right.
    Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)

    Water is essential for life as we know it. However, scientists debate how it reached the Earth and whether the same processes could seed rocky exoplanets orbiting distant stars. New insights may come from the planetary system PDS 70, located 370 light-years away...

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    Hydrogen Peroxide found on Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede in Higher Latitudes

    July 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Hydrogen peroxide found on Jupiter's moon Ganymede only in higher latitudes
    Maps of Ganymede’s 3.5 μm H2O2 absorption compared to those of the 3.1 μm Fresnel peaks of water ice and corresponding projections of the U.S. Geological Survey Voyager–Galileo imaging mosaic. H2O2 appears constrained to the upper latitudes, particularly on the leading hemisphere, which exhibits sharp boundaries at approximately ±30° to 35° latitude. These boundaries are roughly coincident with the onset of Ganymede’s polar frost caps and with the latitudes at which most of the impinging Jovian magnetospheric particles can access the surface. Maps of the Fresnel reflection peak of water ice, which generally track the distribution of ice deduced from shorter-wavelength water bands, also show the areas of greatest H2O2 on the leading hemisphere to be enriched in water ice...
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    To Stick or to Bounce: Size determines the Stickiness of Cosmic Dust Aggregates

    July 25, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Micrometer-scale dust particles from protoplanetary disks, or sites around stars with particles and hydrogen and/or other gasses, aggregate to form planetesimals, or kilometer-scale building blocks of planets. Planetesimals, in turn, merge due to mutual gravity. ©JAMSTEC

    Microparticle dust aggregates, which are thought to play a role in the formation of new planets, are less likely to stick together after a collision when the aggregates are larger.

    Current evidence suggests that microparticles of cosmic dust collide and stick together to form larger dust aggregates that may eventually combine and develop into planets...

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    Ancient, High-Energy Impacts could have Fueled Venus Volcanism

    July 24, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Model showing Venus' high-energy impacts
    An SwRI-led team compared the early impact history of Venus and Earth, determining that Venus experienced higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core. Models show these conditions could create Venus’ extended volcanism and younger surface.

    Models show Venus’ superheated core could produce extended volcanism, long-lived resurfacing. A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth’s sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core that promoted extended volcanism and resurfaced the planet.

    “One of the mysteries of t...

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