Category Astronomy/Space

Cube-shaped snow, icy landscapes, and frost are all part of the Red Planet’s coldest season.
When winter comes to Mars, the surface is transformed into a truly otherworldly holiday scene. Snow, ice, and frost accompany the season’s sub-zero temperatures. Some of the coldest of these occur at the planet’s poles, where it gets as low as minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 123 degrees Celsius).

Cold as it is, don’t expect snow drifts worthy of the Rocky Mountains...

Researchers have uncovered a previously hidden heating process that helps explain how the atmosphere that surrounds the Sun called the “solar corona” can be vastly hotter than the solar surface that emits it.

The discovery at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) could improve tackling a range of astrophysical puzzles such as star formation, the origin of large-scale magnetic fields in the universe, and the ability to predict eruptive space weather events that can disrupt cell phone service and black out power grids on Earth. Understanding the heating process also has implications for fusion research.

First clear 3D explanation

“Our direct numerical simulation is the first to pro...

In a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal, a pair of researchers led by The Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute in California investigated the potential origin for the thick regolith deposits on Uranus’ moon, Miranda. The purpose of this study was to determine Miranda’s internal structure, most notably its interior heat, which could help determine if Miranda harbors—or ever harbored—an internal ocean.

“It is unlikely that Miranda would be able to retain a subsurface ocean to the present day due to its small size,” said Dr. Chloe Beddingfield, who is a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center...

Lunar Trailblazer, NASA’s mission led by Caltech in Pasadena, California to understand lunar water and the moon’s water cycle, is one step closer to launching next year. Earlier this month, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California delivered a key science instrument to Lockheed Martin Space in Colorado, and the teams integrated it with the small satellite, or SmallSat.

The instrument, called the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), is one of two on Lunar Trailblazer...