The search for water on the moon has produced a discovery of tiny molecule-sized perhaps widespread amounts of H20 in a sunlit lunar crater. The water is not in a liquid or ice or gaseous form, but rather apparently contained (and protected) inside glass beads formed when micrometeorites hit the surface. The detection was made …
Surprising Insights Into the Asteroid Bennu’s Past, as OSIRIS-REx Prepares For a Sample-Collecting “Tag”
Long before there was an Earth, asteroids large and small were orbiting our young sun. Among them was one far enough out from the sun to contain water ice, as well as organic compounds with lots of carbon. In its five billion years or so as an object, the asteroid was hit and broken apart …
Cores, Planets and The Mission to Psyche
Deep inside the rocky planets of our solar system, as well as some solar system moons, is an iron-based core. Some, such as Earth's core, have an inner solid phase and outer molten phase, but the solar system cores studied so far are of significantly varied sizes and contain a pretty wide variety of elements …
Standing on an Asteroid: Could the Future of Research and Education be Virtual Reality?
https://videopress.com/v/SgQvMH55?preloadContent=metadata Scenes from the virtual reality talk on Hayabusa2 with students from the Yokohama International School. Each student has a robot avatar they can use to look around the scene, talk with other people and interact with objects. (OmniScope) Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand on an asteroid? A rugged …
Planetary Protection and the Moons of Mars
Sometime in the early to mid-2020s, the capsule of the Japanese Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is scheduled to arrive at the moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos. These are small and desolate places, but one goal of the mission is large: to collect samples from the moons and bring them back to Earth. …
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Japan’s Mission to the Martian Moons Will Return a Sample From Phobos. What Makes This Moon So Exciting?
Artist impression of JAXA's MMX spacecraft around Mars (JAXA). Japan in planning to launch a mission to visit the two moons of Mars in 2024. The spacecraft will touchdown on the surface of Phobos, gathering a sample to bring back to Earth. But what is so important about a moon the size of a city? …
Tales From the Deep Earth
When especially interesting new planets are discovered in the cosmos, scientists around the world begin the process of identifying their characteristics -- their orbit, their mass and density, their composition, their thermal properties and much more. It's all part of a drive that seems to be innate in humans to learn about the workings of …
How Long Were the Wet Periods on Early Mars, and Was That Water Chemically Suitable For Life?
There is no doubt that early Mars had long period of warmer and much wetter climates before its atmosphere thinned too much to retain that liquid H20 on the surface. As we know from the Curiosity mission to Gale Crater and other orbital findings, regions of that warmer and wetter Mars had flowing water …
Icy Moons and Their Plumes
Just about everything that scientists see as essential for extraterrestrial life -- carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and sources of energy -- is now known to be pretty common in our solar system and beyond. It's basically there for the taking by untold potential forms of life. But what is not at all common …
Mapping Titan, the Most Earth-Like Body in Our Solar System
Saturn's moon Titan has lakes and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons, temperatures that hover around -300 degrees Fahrenheit, and a thick haze that surrounds it and has cloaked it in mystery. An unusual place for sure, but perhaps what's most unusual is that Titan more closely resembles Earth of all the planets and moons in our …
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Many Worlds 