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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Mars didn’t Dry Up in one go

    April 10, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    View of hillocks on the slopes of Mount Sharp, showing the various types of terrain that will soon be explored by the Curiosity rover, and the ancient environments in which they formed, according to the sedimentary structures observed in ChemCam’s telescope images (mosaics A and B).
    © NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/CNES/CNRS/LANL/IRAP/IAS/LPGN

    A research team has discovered that the Martian climate alternated between dry and wetter periods, before drying up completely about 3 billion years ago. The Perseverance rover has just landed on Mars. Meanwhile, its precursor Curiosity continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp (officially Aeolis Mons), a mountain several kilometres high at the centre of the Gale crater...

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    First Transiting Exoplanet’s ‘Chemical Fingerprint’ reveals its Distant Birthplace

    April 9, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Exoplanet HD 209458b transits its star. The illuminated crescent and its colours have been exaggerated to illustrate the light spectra that the astronomers used to identify the six molecules in its atmosphere.

    Astronomers have found evidence that the first exoplanet that was identified transiting its star could have migrated to a close orbit with its star from its original birthplace further away.

    Analysis of the planet’s atmosphere by a team including University of Warwick scientists has identified the chemical fingerprint of a planet that formed much further away from its sun than it currently resides...

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    NASA’s first Weather report from Jezero Crater on Mars

    April 8, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    One of the wind sensors aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover can be seen deploying from the mast in this image taken on Mar. 1, 2021, the 10th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The sensor is part of a suite of weather sensors called MEDA. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    The weather often plays a role in our daily plans. You might put on a light jacket when the forecast calls for a cool breeze or delay your travel plans because of an impending storm. NASA engineers use weather data to inform their plans, too, which is why they’re analyzing the conditions millions of miles away on Mars.

    The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) system aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover first powered on for 30 minutes Feb. 19, approximately one day after the rover touched down on the Red Planet...

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    Hubble Spots Double Quasars in Merging Galaxies

    April 7, 2021, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist’s conception shows the brilliant light of two quasars residing in the cores of two galaxies that are in the chaotic process of merging. The gravitational tug-of-war between the two galaxies stretches them, forming long tidal tails and igniting a firestorm of starbirth. Quasars are brilliant beacons of intense light from the centers of distant galaxies. They are powered by supermassive black holes voraciously feeding on infalling matter. This feeding frenzy unleashes a torrent of radiation that can outshine the collective light of billions of stars in the host galaxy. In a few tens of millions of years, the black holes and their galaxies will merge, and so will the quasar pair, forming an even more massive black hole...
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