Asteroid Bennu is thought to be made of rubble fragments from a 4.5-billion-year-old parent body, containing materials that originated beyond Saturn, which was destroyed long ago in a collision with another object. In two new papers,…
Category: 2. Space
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Researchers Find Evidence for Relatively Recent Seismic Activity on Lunar Far Side
New research from Smithsonian Institution and the University of Maryland shows that lunar fault structures may be recently and potentially currently active within regions of interest for upcoming lunar missions.
Small ridges on the Moon’s…
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Juno Detects Massive Volcanic Hotspot near Io’s South Pole
The newly-discovered volcanic hotspot is larger than Earth’s Lake Superior, and belches out eruptions six times the total energy of all the world’s power plants.
A massive hotspot can be seen just to the right of Io’s south pole in this…
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Lunar Ridges Reveal New Insights into the Moon’s Geological Activity
Did the Moon’s geological activity stop billions of years ago after it formed, or has it been active since then? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a…
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Planetary Scientists Offer New Explanation for Warm, Wet Ancient Mars
A team of planetary researchers led by Caltech has determined the chemical mechanisms by which the ancient Mars was able to sustain enough warmth in its early days to host water, and possibly life.
Adams et al. estimate that Mars experienced…
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Harvard Researchers Solve the Puzzle of Mars’ Ancient Rivers and Lakes
Did Mars have lakes and rivers during a single period or over separate periods? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated…
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Scientists Investigate How Titan Keeps Its Dense Atmosphere Intact
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere which is comprised of thick hazes of 95 percent nitrogen (N2) and 5 percent methane (NH4) that require radar…
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Dwarf Planet Ceres’ Organic Matter Was Originally Delivered by Impactors from Main Belt: Study
Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt, and the only potential ocean world in the inner Solar System.
A global scan for organic-rich sites on Ceres using a deep neural network revealed two new sites close to the well-known…
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New Experiments Shed Light on How Titan Maintains Its Unique Nitrogen-Rich Atmosphere
Heating of complex organic matter in the presence of water may be an important source of Titan’s abundant atmospheric nitrogen and methane gases, according to new research from Southwest Research Institute and Carnegie Institution for…
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Sound of Meteorite Strike Recorded for First Time Ever
In July 2024, a home security camera in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, captured rare video and sound of a meteorite striking Earth. According to meteorite experts, the event is likely the first and only time the sound of a…
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