Recent Comments

    Category Astronomy/Space

    Mars: Simulations of Early Impacts produce a Mixed Mars Mantle

    February 16, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Early Mars after impact, showing projectile materials leaving the planet
    Courtesy of Southwest Research Institute A Southwest Research Institute team performed high-resolution, smoothed-particle simulations of a large, differentiated projectile hitting early Mars after its core and mantle had formed. The projectile’s core and mantle particles are indicated by brown and green spheres respectively, showing local concentrations of the projectile materials assimilated into the Martian mantle.

    The early solar system was a chaotic place, with evidence indicating that Mars was likely struck by planetesimals, small protoplanets up to 1,200 miles in diameter, early in its history...

    Read More

    New Horizons Team uncovers a Critical Piece of the Planetary Formation puzzle

    February 15, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The uniform color and composition of Arrokoth’s surface shows the Kuiper Belt object formed from a small, uniform, cloud of material in the solar nebula, rather than a mishmash of matter from more separated parts of the nebula. The former supports the idea that Arrokoth formed in a local collapse of a cloud in the solar nebula.
    Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Roman Tkachenko

    Data from NASA’s New Horizons mission are providing new insights into how planets and planetesimals – the building blocks of the planets – were formed.

    The New Horizons spacecraft flew past the ancient Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth (2014 MU69) on Jan...

    Read More

    New Insights about the Brightest Explosions in the Universe

    February 14, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Supernova 2006gy
    Image: Fox, Ori D. et al. Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 454 (2015) no.4

    Swedish and Japanese researchers have, after ten years, found an explanation to the peculiar emission lines seen in one of the brightest supernovae ever observed – SN 2006gy. At the same time they found an explanation for how the supernova arose.

    Superluminous supernovae are the most luminous explosions in cosmos. SN 2006gy is one of the most studied such events, but researchers have been uncertain about its origin. Astrophysicists at Stockholm University have, together with Japanese colleagues, now discovered large amounts of iron in the supernova through spectral lines that have never previously been seen either in supernovae or in other astrophysical objects...

    Read More

    Study reveals details of ‘golf ball asteroid’

    February 13, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Two views of the asteroid Pallas, which researchers have determined to be the most heavily cratered object in the asteroid belt.
    Image courtesy of the researchers

    The asteroid is named Pallas, after the Greek goddess of wisdom, and was originally discovered in 1802. Pallas is the third largest object in the asteroid belt, and is about one-seventh the size of the moon. For centuries, astronomers have noticed that the asteroid orbits along a significantly tilted track compared with the majority of objects in the asteroid belt, though the reason for its incline remains a mystery.

    In a paper published today in Nature Astronomy, researchers reveal detailed images of Pallas, including its heavily cratered surface, for the first time.

    The researchers suspect that Pallas’ pummeled s...

    Read More