Tag: Solar System

Mars orbiter captures Red Planet scar that’s longer than the Grand Canyon (image)

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New images published by the European Space Agency have captured a 600-kilometer-long (373-mile-long) snaking scar on Mars’ surface in greater detail than ever before. The Red Planet is full of scratches and scars, and this one, named Aganippe Fossa, is another of these ditch-like grooves with steep walls — more specifically, however, Aganippe Fossa is what’s called a “graben.”  “We’re still unsure of how and when Aganippe Fossa came to be, but it seems likely that it was formed as magma rising underneath the colossal mass of the Tharsis volcanoes…

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Boiling rocks from Earth’s crust tore an ocean into Mongolia 410 million years ago

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Over 400 million years ago, an upwelling of hot rock from Earth’s mantle wrenched apart the crust in Mongolia, creating an ocean that survived for 115 million years.  The geological history of this ocean could help researchers understand Wilson cycles, or the process by which supercontinents break apart and come together. These are slow, broad-scale processes that progress by less than an inch per year, said study co-author Daniel Pastor-Galán, a geoscientist at the National Spanish Research Council in Madrid.  “It’s telling us about processes in the earth that are…

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Giant river system that existed 40 million years ago discovered deep below Antarctic ice

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Geologists digging into the massive ice sheet of West Antarctica have discovered the remains of an ancient river system that once flowed for nearly a thousand miles. The discovery offers a glimpse into the Earth’s history and hints at how extreme climate change could alter the planet, according to their findings, published June 5 in the journal Science Advances.  “If we think about a potentially severe climate change in the future, we need to learn from periods in Earth’s history where this already happened,” Johann Klages, study co-author and a sedimentologist at the Alfred…

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See the sun rage behind the ISS in epic time-lapse photo

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Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky.  This image shows the silhouette of the International Space Station (ISS) as it crosses in front of the sun’s disk at a distance of 274 miles (441.5 km) from us and at a speed of about 4.5 miles…

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Mars Odyssey celebrates 100,000 orbits, captures epic view of solar system’s largest volcano

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NASA’s Odyssey spacecraft, the longest-running mission at Mars, circled the Red Planet for the 100,000th time today, the mission team announced in a statement. To celebrate the milestone, the space agency released an intricate panorama of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system;  Odyssey captured the view in March. The volcano’s base sprawls 373 miles (600 kilometers) near the Martian equator while it soars 17 miles (27 kilometers) into the planet’s thin air. Earlier this month, astronomers discovered ephemeral morning frost coating the volcano’s top for a few…

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It’s International Asteroid Day, and astronomers have much to celebrate

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Today, astronomers and space lovers around the world are collectively marveling at our mercurial presence in the universe, particularly as we drift the cosmos amid large asteroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. June 30 marks Asteroid Day, a holiday observed annually to reflect on the prospect of a planet-destroying space rock striking Earth and what scientists are doing to mitigate that risk. The day is observed on the anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska event in Russia, when a space rock about half the…

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How long would it take to reach Planet 9, if we ever find it?

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Some experts believe that we could be just a few years away from discovering the elusive “Planet Nine” — or ruling out the existence of the hypothetical world for good.  DOES PLANET 9 EXIST? But if we do find it, how long would it take for us to send a spacecraft to the far-flung world? And could humans ever make the trip? Planet Nine is the name given to a proposed planet supposedly lurking near the edge of the solar system. If it exists, Planet Nine is likely a dark,…

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Planet Nine: Is the search for this elusive world nearly over?

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Deep in the outer reaches of the solar system — so far away from the known planets that the sun would barely be distinguishable from a nearby star — a massive, icy world may be lurking in the shadows, waiting to be discovered by humanity.  And the day that we finally find this elusive planet may be coming soon, thanks to a state-of-the-art telescope that will begin scanning the sky next year. The solar system has eight official planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. But in…

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Evidence for Planet 9 found in icy bodies sneaking past Neptune

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More evidence for a hypothetical extra planet lurking in the most distant reaches of our solar system has come to light — and the clues are associated with icy bodies that cross the orbit of Neptune while traversing  long, looping paths around the sun. Planet Nine, as the predicted planet is referred to, was first postulated in 2016 by Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown, the latter having also discovered the dwarf planet Eris in 2005. Their original evidence predominantly focused on the clustering of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which are…

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Uranus and Neptune aren’t made of what we thought, new study hints

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Astronomers have long believed that the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are rich in frozen water. However, a new study suggests they may also have tons of methane ice. The findings could help solve a puzzle about how these icy worlds formed. Much about Uranus and Neptune remains unknown. These ice giant worlds have had just a single spacecraft visitor, Voyager 2, which flew past them in the 1980s. As a result, scientists have only a hazy idea of the ice giants’ compositions — for example, that they contain significant…

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