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    Category Astronomy/Space

    NASA’s Next Mars Rover Progresses Toward 2020 Launch

    July 16, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Mars 2020 rover design

    This image is from computer-assisted-design work on the Mars 2020 rover. The design leverages many successful features of NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, but also adds new science instruments and a sampling system to carry out new goals for the 2020 mission. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    After an extensive review process and passing a major development milestone, NASA is ready to proceed with final design and construction of its next Mars rover, currently targeted to launch in the summer of 2020 and arrive on the Red Planet in February 2021. The Mars 2020 rover will investigate a region of Mars where the ancient environment may have been favorable for microbial life, probing the Martian rocks for evidence of past life...

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    Dark Energy measured with Record-breaking 3D Map of 1.2 million Galaxies

    July 15, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey has transformed a two-dimensional image of the sky (left panel) into a three-dimensional map spanning distances of billions of light years, shown here from two perspectives (middle and right panels). This map includes 120,000 galaxies over 10% of the survey area. The brighter regions correspond to the regions of the Universe with more galaxies and therefore more dark matter. Credit: Jeremy Tinker and SDSS-III

    The Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey has transformed a two-dimensional image of the sky (left panel) into a three-dimensional map spanning distances of billions of light years, shown here from two perspectives (middle and right panels). This map includes 120,000 galaxies over 10% of the survey area. The brighter regions correspond to the regions of the Universe with more galaxies and therefore more dark matter. Credit: Jeremy Tinker and SDSS-III

    A team of hundreds of physicists and astronomers constructed a 3D map to make one of the most precise measurements yet of the dark energy currently driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe. “We have spent 5 years collecting measurements of 1...

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    Warm Jupiters Not as Lonely as Expected

    July 15, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An artist’s portrayal of a Warm Jupiter gas-giant planet (r.) in orbit around its parent star, along with smaller companion planets. Image credit: Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Library

    An artist’s portrayal of a Warm Jupiter gas-giant planet (r.) in orbit around its parent star, along with smaller companion planets. Image credit: Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Library

    After analyzing 4 years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called “Warm Jupiters,” showing that many have unexpected planetary companions. The team’s analysis provides strong evidence of the existence of 2 distinct types of Warm Jupiters, each with their own formation and dynamical history, ie those that have companions and thus, likely formed where we find them today; and those with no companions that likely migrated to their current positions.

    According to Chelsea Huang, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophys...

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    Surface Composition Determines Temperature and thus Habitability of a Planet

    July 14, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The figures show the wind, temperature, and surface-atmosphere friction on a planet 1.45 times the size of the Earth in a 1-day orbit around an M dwarf. The two topmost figures show the wind and the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere. The two figures in the middle show the wind and the temperature on the surface of the planet. On the left-hand figures, the surface-atmosphere friction equals that on Earth. On the right-hand figures, there is ten times as much friction between surface and atmosphere than is the case on Earth. Both scenarios have a different impact on the climate of a planet: the climate represented in the right-hand figures is more habitable. Credit: KU Leuven - Ludmila Carone and Leen Decin

    The figures show the wind, temperature, and surface-atmosphere friction on a planet 1.45 times the size of the Earth in a 1-day orbit around an M dwarf. The two topmost figures show the wind and the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere. The two figures in the middle show the wind and the temperature on the surface of the planet. On the left-hand figures, the surface-atmosphere friction equals that on Earth. On the right-hand figures, there is ten times as much friction between surface and atmosphere than is the case on Earth. Both scenarios have a different impact on the climate of a planet: the climate represented in the right-hand figures is more habitable. Credit: KU Leuven – Ludmila Carone and Leen Decin

    Astronomers from KU Leuven, Belgium, have shown that the interaction ...

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