coronae tagged posts

In a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal, a pair of researchers led by The Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute in California investigated the potential origin for the thick regolith deposits on Uranus’ moon, Miranda. The purpose of this study was to determine Miranda’s internal structure, most notably its interior heat, which could help determine if Miranda harbors—or ever harbored—an internal ocean.

“It is unlikely that Miranda would be able to retain a subsurface ocean to the present day due to its small size,” said Dr. Chloe Beddingfield, who is a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center...

Finding lost star siblings. Star clusters have been part of the Imaginarium of human civilization for millennia. The brightest star clusters to Earth, like the Pleiades, are readily visible to the naked eye. A team has now revealed the existence of massive stellar halos, termed coronae, surrounding local star clusters.

“Clusters form big families of stars that can stay together for large parts of their lifetime...

Arriving at Uranus in 1986, Voyager 2 observed a bluish orb with extremely subtle features. A haze layer hid most of the planet’s cloud features from view. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Humanity has visited Uranus only once, 30 yrs ago. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft got its closest look at the distant, gaseous planet on Jan. 24, 1986. Voyager 2 sent back stunning images of the planet and its moons during a flyby of 5.5 hrs of close study. It got within 50,600 miles of Uranus, the coldest planet in our solar system, though not the farthest from the sun, It has no internal heat source. Atmosphere of Uranus is 85% hydrogen and 15% helium. There was also evidence of a boiling ocean ~500 miles below the cloud tops.

Scientists found that Uranus has a magnetic field different from any they had ever enco...