Tag Archives: planetary

  There is no longer any doubt that the universe is teeming with planets — NASA recently announced that the total number of known exoplanets has crossed 5,000, and we’ve only just begun our search of the heavens. Upcoming projects leveraging the shiny new James Webb Space Telescope will certainly …

Astronomers Have Discovered the First Exposed Planetary Core Most of what we know about planetary cores is conjecture, on account of the fact that we live on top of ours and have extremely limited access to all of the others. Since none of the planets whizzing around our own star …

Planetary Researchers Explore Habitability of Europa’s Ocean A duo of U.S. planetary scientists has calculated that water in the subsurface ocean of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa could have been formed by breakdown of water-containing minerals due to either tidal forces or radioactive decay. Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon …

Methane present in the early Martian atmosphere, together with carbon dioxide and hydrogen may have created a greenhouse effect on the planet 3.5-4.5 billion years ago, according to a Harvard University-led team of researchers. Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to …

Using images from NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, planetary researchers have discovered a broad valley in the southern hemisphere of the planet Mercury. Using colorized topography, Mercury’s ‘great valley’ (dark blue) and Rembrandt impact basin (purple, upper right) are revealed in this high-resolution digital elevation …