A beautiful new image of Jupiter from the Hubble Space Telescope – captured in August 2020 – shows the planet’s icy moon Europa as well as several famous storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/hubble-jupiter-europa-famous-jovian-storms…
Tag: water vapor
Climate change impacts astronomical observations
Climate changes associated with global warming can affect astronomical observations. That is the result of a study involving scientists from the University of Cologne. The international research team investigated a range of climate parameters at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates its telescopes. Among other things,…
95 new cool brown dwarfs in the sun’s neighborhood
A group of citizen scientists working with a NASA citizen science project called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has discovered 95 new brown dwarfs in the sun’s nearby neighborhood. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/brown-dwarfs-cosmic-neighborhood-backyard-worlds-citizen-scientists…
Amazing photos in Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter celebration
NASA has posted a sampling of some of the most awe-inspiring photos of Mars, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the launch of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They are proof that Mars is a very photogenic world. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-photos-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-15th-anniversary…
NASA scientists leverage carbon-measuring instrument for Mars studies
Insights and technology gleaned from creating a carbon-measuring instrument for Earth climate studies is being leveraged to build another that would remotely profile, for the first time, water vapor up to nine miles above the Martian surface, along with wind speeds and minute particles suspended in the planet’s atmosphere. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-nasa-scientists-leverage-carbon-measuring-instrument.html…
More evidence that Europa’s ocean is habitable
A new study shown by NASA scientists at the Goldschmidt conference this week provides further evidence that Europa’s ocean is habitable and similar to Earth’s oceans. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/europa-ocean-habitable-goldschmidt-conference…
Saharan-fed sunsets in the US
A massive Saharan dust plume is moving into the southeast US, bringing technicolor sunsets and suppressing tropical storms. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/saharan-dust-cloud-us-sunsets-june2020…
New study says dinosaur-dooming asteroid struck Earth at ‘deadliest possible’ angle
“For the dinosaurs, the worst-case scenario is exactly what happened … because it put more hazardous debris into the upper atmosphere and scattered it everywhere, the very thing that led to a nuclear winter.” Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-struck-earth-deadliest-angle…
More evidence for watery plumes on Europa
Scientists in Europe have found more yet evidence for water vapor plumes on Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/europa-water-vapor-plumes-galileo…
Here’s how SOHO and a skywatcher discovered Comet SWAN
Almost every day, the SWAN instrument aboard the sun-watching SOHO spacecraft makes a map of the sky. Anyone with internet access them maps and join the search for new comets. To date, 12 comets have been spotted in the SWAN data! Source: https://earthsky.org/space/discovery-comet-swan-solar-watcher-soho…