sciencehabit shares this article from Science magazine:
The comet is an alien intruder from another star system. But 2I/Borisov, the second known interstellar visitor after far smaller ‘Oumuamua, discovered in 2017, looks remarkably like a normal comet from our own Solar System: an object a few kilometers across spewing carbon monoxide gas, water vapor, and dust. Researchers who announced their analysis this…
Tag: water vapor
These alien geysers spew life’s building blocks
The Cassini mission to Saturn is over, but scientists still pore over its data. The newest discovery is of organic compounds – the ingredients of amino acids, the building blocks of life – in water vapor plumes from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/new-organic-compounds-discovered-in-enceladus-plumes-ingredients-of-amino-acids…
Organic Compounds Found In Plumes of Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus
Scientists have detected new types of organic compounds in the plumes that have been erupting from Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. Space.com reports: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft collected invaluable data and images of Saturn and its moons over the approximately 20 years that the mission took place. While the mission ended on Sept. 15, 2017, with the craft diving toward the planet in…
Water Vapor Discovered on Distant Exoplanet
Where else might life exist? Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html…
Inside the Race to Discover a Water Vapor World
Water vapor, and likely clouds that rain liquid water, have been discovered on an exoplanet that lies in the habitable zone of its star. But there’s an issue. Source: https://www.livescience.com/inside-race-water-vapor-exoplanet.html
Why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate
Carbon dioxide, CO2, makes up less than one-twentieth of 1% of Earth’s atmosphere. How does this relatively scarce gas control Earth’s thermostat? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/why-carbon-dioxide-co2-influence-earths-climate-greenhouse-effect…
Is K2-18b really a habitable super-Earth?
It was exciting last week when scientists announced water vapor in a super-Earth’s atmosphere. But, even as the announcement came, other scientists were cautioning that the planet – K2-18b – is probably less like a super-Earth and more like a planet Neptune. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/k2-18b-habitable-super-earth-or-mini-neptune…