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    Category Astronomy/Space

    NASA-funded Website lets public search for new Nearby Worlds

    February 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA-funded website lets public search for new nearby worlds

    This artist’s concept illustrates a close-up view of a cool brown dwarf. Objects like this, drifting just beyond our solar system, have been imaged by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and could be discovered by Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    NASA is inviting the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. A new website, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, lets everyone participate in the search by viewing brief movies made from images captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. It highlight objects that have gradually moved across the sky.

    “There are just over 4 light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this...

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    NASA’s OSIRIS-REx takes its first image of Jupiter

    February 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This image was taken at 3:38 a.m. EST on Feb. 9, 2017, when the spacecraft was 75 million miles (120 million kilometers) from Earth and 419 million miles (675 million kilometers) from Jupiter. With an exposure time of two seconds, the image renders Jupiter overexposed, but allows for enhanced detection of stars in the background. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

    This image was taken at 3:38 a.m. EST on Feb. 9, 2017, when the spacecraft was 75 million miles from Earth and 419 million miles from Jupiter. With an exposure time of two seconds, the image renders Jupiter overexposed, but allows for enhanced detection of stars in the background. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

    This magnified, cropped image showing Jupiter and 3 of its moons was taken by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s MapCam instrument during optical navigation testing for the mission’s Earth-Trojan Asteroid Search. The image shows Jupiter in the center, the moon Callisto to the left and the moons Io and Europa to the right. Ganymede, Jupiter’s fourth moon, is also present in the image, but is not visible as it is crossing in front of the planet.

    The image was taken at 3:38 a...

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    An Area on Mars that appears flooded in the past offers a prime Target to Search for Past Life Forms

    February 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Example of geochemically cemented crossbed strata in the interdune near Walvis Bay, Namibia. a) Google Earth image of crossbeds upwind of the windward slope of a barchan in Namibia. White arrows highlight particularly prominent examples b) Ground image of crossbeds showing general relief of interdune (<10cm) c) Wall of pit excavated in interdune (location seen in b) shows dipping sediment layers in subsurface are contiguous with protruding layers on the surface. Alternating high and low albedo layers have different salt composition and grainsize. The darker layer forms the more pronounced micro-ridges.

    Example of geochemically cemented crossbed strata in the interdune near Walvis Bay, Namibia. a) Google Earth image of crossbeds upwind of the windward slope of a barchan in Namibia. White arrows highlight particularly prominent examples b) Ground image of crossbeds showing general relief of interdune (<10cm) c) Wall of pit excavated in interdune (location seen in b) shows dipping sediment layers in subsurface are contiguous with protruding layers on the surface. Alternating high and low albedo layers have different salt composition and grainsize. The darker layer forms the more pronounced micro-ridges.

    Trinity College Dublin researchers have discovered a patch of land in an ancient valley on Mars that appears to have been flooded by water in the not-too-distant past...

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    The Heart of a far-off Star Beats for its Planet

    February 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    For the first time, astronomers have observed a star pulsing in response to its orbiting planet. The star, HAT-P-2, pictured, is one of the most massive exoplanets known today. The planet, named HAT-P-2b, tracks its star in a highly eccentric orbit, flying extremely close to and around the star, then hurtling far out before eventually circling back around. Credit: Image courtesy of NASA (edited by MIT News)

    For the first time, astronomers have observed a star pulsing in response to its orbiting planet. The star, HAT-P-2, pictured, is one of the most massive exoplanets known today. The planet, named HAT-P-2b, tracks its star in a highly eccentric orbit, flying extremely close to and around the star, then hurtling far out before eventually circling back around. Credit: Image courtesy of NASA (edited by MIT News)

    Scientists observe first planet-induced stellar pulsations. For the first time, astronomers from MIT and elsewhere have observed a star pulsing in response to its orbiting planet.The star, which goes by the name HAT-P-2, is about 400 light years from Earth and is circled by a gas giant measuring 8X the mass of Jupiter – one of the most massive exoplanets known today...

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