silicates tagged posts

1. Left: The surface of Rosetta’s comet. As the comet approaches the Sun, frozen gases evaporate from below the surface, dragging tiny particles of dust along with them. Right: These dust grains can be captured and examined using the COSIMA instrument. Targets such as this one measuring only a few centimeters act as dust collectors. They retain dust particles of up to 100 microns in size. 2. Left: Overview of the chemical elements that make up Rosetta’s comet. Right: Average mass distribution of organic and mineral substances in Rosetta’s comet.

This is an illustration of a planet that is four times the mass of Jupiter and orbits 5 billion miles from a brown-dwarf companion (the bright red object seen in the background). The rotation rate of this “super-Jupiter” has been measured by studying subtle variations in the infrared light the hot planet radiates through a variegated, cloudy atmosphere. The planet completes one rotation every 10 hours — about the same rate as Jupiter. Because the planet is young, it is still contracting under gravity and radiating heat. The atmosphere is so hot that it rains molten glass and, at lower altitudes, molten iron...

A computer simulation of the formation of complex organic molecules in space. The spherical molecular structures forming on the graphene surface at 3000 K are similar in shape to fullerenes. The red atoms originated in the gas phase and the white atoms are from the surface. Credit: Marshall and Sadeghpour