Category: Solar System
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December’s Night Sky Notes: Spot the King of Planets
by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Jupiter is our solar system’s undisputed king of the planets! Jupiter is bright and easy to spot from our vantage point on Earth, helped by its massive size and banded,…
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The Next Full Moon Will Be the Last of Four Consecutive Supermoons
The Next Full Moon is a Supermoon; the Beaver, Frost, Frosty, or Snow Moon; Kartik Purnima; Loy Krathong; the Bon Om Touk (”Boat Racing Festival”) Moon, the Tazaungdaing Festival Moon; and Ill Poya. The next full Moon will be Friday…
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Sinister Solar System
Our universe is full of mysterious sights and sounds. Explore some of our most frightful finds from past Halloweens.
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Old Data Yields New Secrets as NASA’s DAVINCI Preps for Venus Trip
How NASA’s DAVINCI mission to Venus uses old data to reveal new secrets.
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New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals
NASA announced Wednesday a new strategy review team will assess potential architecture adjustments for the agency’s Mars Sample Return Program, which aims to bring back scientifically selected samples from Mars, and is a key step in NASA’s quest to better…
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NASA’s Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of…
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NASA’s Hubble Watches Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball
Astronomers have observed Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises – especially when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes a close-up look at it.…
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NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable
NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that…
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NASA’s LRO: Lunar Ice Deposits are Widespread
Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. Ice would be a valuable resource for future lunar expeditions. Water…
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NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P
Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the…