Category Astronomy/Space

For the past year, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been traveling through a transition zone from a clay-rich region to one filled with a salty mineral called sulfate. While the science team targeted the clay-rich region and the sulfate-laden one for evidence each can offer about Mars’ watery past, the transition zone is proving to be scientifically fascinating as well...

Researchers have shown in a single model the full story of how gas travels in the center of the Milky Way — from being blown off by stars to falling into the black hole.

Looks can be deceiving. The light from an incandescent bulb seems steady, but it flickers 120 times per second. Because the brain only perceives an average of the information it receives, this flickering is blurred and the perception of constant illumination is a mere illusion.

While light cannot escape a black hole, the bright glow of rapidly orbiting gas (recall the images of M87’s black hole and Sgr A) has its own unique flicker. In a recent paper, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, Lena Murchikova, William D...

Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet data fills gap in observations. A Southwest Research Institute-led team used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe Jupiter’s moon, Europa, at ultraviolet wavelengths, filling in a “gap” in the various wavelengths used to observe this icy water world. The team’s near-global UV maps show concentrations of sulfur dioxide on Europa’s trailing side.

SwRI will further these studies using the Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS), which will o...

Southwest Research Institute scientists combined data from NASA’s New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modeling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto’s moon Charon and how it may have formed. This first-ever description of Charon’s dynamic methane atmosphere using new experimental data provides a fascinating glimpse into the origins of this moon’s red spot as described in two recent papers.