Tag: planetary science
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Are comets the origin of Earth’s oceans?
[ I am reviving the Bowler Hat Science blog as a quick way to link all my new publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all my stories! ] Are comets the origin of Earth’s oceans? From The Daily Beast: Water, water everywhere, but where did it come from? One common explanation is…
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All the single centaurs
Saturn’s magnificent rings have been known since Galileo observed the planet’s “ears” in his telescope. In the last few decades, researchers found rings (albeit less shiny ones) around the other giant planets — Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. And now the small asteroid Chariklo has joined the ring cycle: observations revealed it has two narrow rings,…
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Some planet-like Kuiper belt objects don’t play “Nice”
When we talk about big advances in planetary science, we often are thinking about Mars rovers or the discovery of exoplanets. However, one area where we’ve learned a lot over the last few decades is the Kuiper belt: a region beyond the orbit of Neptune inhabited by small bodies of ice and rock. Before 1992,…
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MESSENGER: Mercury’s craters have ice and organic molecules
The MESSENGER (MErcury Surface Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft has found strong evidence both for water ice and organic molecules in shadowed craters near Mercury’s poles. Unlike Earth, Mercury has no seasons: its axis stands perpendicular to its plane of orbit, so deep craters near the north and south pole will have bottoms in…
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Makemake has no atmosphere, possibly a partly frosted surface
The dwarf planet Makemake (pronounced MAHkayMAHkay) is about 2/3 the diameter of Pluto, and farther from the Sun. That makes it hard to observe. Astronomers using a set of telescopes in South America tracked it during an occultation: a brief interval when it passed in front of a faint star. By measuring the light curve—the…
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