Category Astronomy/Space

The cosmic boundary, perhaps caused by a young Jupiter or a wind from the solar system emerging, likely shaped the composition of infant planets. In the early solar system, a “protoplanetary disk” of dust and gas rotated around the sun and eventually coalesced into the planets we know today.

A new analysis of ancient meteorites by scientists at MIT and elsewhere suggests that a mysterious gap existed within this disk around 4...

How a conductive form of ice is formed at several thousand degrees and millions of times atmospheric pressure. Not all ice is the same. The solid form of water comes in more than a dozen different – sometimes more, sometimes less crystalline – structures, depending on the conditions of pressure and temperature in the environment. Superionic ice is a special crystalline form, half solid, half liquid — and electrically conductive. Its existence has been predicted on the basis of various models and has already been observed on several occasions under — very extreme — laboratory conditions...

Strike-slip faulting, the type of motion common to California’s well-known San Andreas Fault, was reported recently to possibly occur on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. New research, led by planetary scientists from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), suggests this tectonic motion may be active on Titan, deforming the icy surface.

On multiple ocean worlds, for example Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, expressions of strike-slip faulting are well documented...

Astronomers have imaged 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The observations reveal a wide range of peculiar shapes, from spherical to dog-bone, and are helping astronomers trace the origins of the asteroids in our Solar System.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, astronomers have imaged 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. Never before had such a large group of asteroids been imaged so sharply. The observations reveal a wide range of peculiar shapes, from spherical to dog-bone, and are helping astronomers trace the origins of the asteroids in our Solar System.

The detailed images of these 42 objects are a leap forward in exploring asteroids...