Our Moon May Have Been Habitable 4 Billion Years Ago
The moon could have supported life billions of years ago, according to new research. A study published in the journal Astrobiology has found that simple lifeforms could have survived on the lunar surface during two periods 3.5 and 4 billion years ago. The study was conducted by two scientists, Professor Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University, and Professor … Continue reading
Chilling NASA Video Shows the Dramatic Increase in Near-Earth Asteroids Over Last 20 Years
Looks like a serious or even catastrophic impact really is WHEN, rather than if. via RT: A mesmerising – and alarming – new animation from NASA demonstrates just how dramatic the increase in near-Earth asteroids entering our Solar System has become over the last 20 years. The video, based on data gathered by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, shows … Continue reading
Evidence of Liquid Water Detected of Beneath the Surface of Mars
A lake of liquid water has been detected by radar beneath the southern polar ice cap of Mars, according to a new study by Italian researchers from the Italian Space Agency, published Wednesday in the journal Science. Evidence was gathered by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument, also known as MARSIS, on the European Space Agency’s … Continue reading
Was Our Solar System Altered by a Rogue Star?
A team of researchers from the Max-Planck Institute and Queen’s University has used new information to test a theory that suggests a rogue star passed close enough to our solar system millions of years ago to change its configuration. The group has written a paper describing their ideas and have posted it on the arXiv preprint server. In recent years, … Continue reading
Near Earth Asteroid 2017 YE5 is an Unusual Equal Mass Binary Object
An asteroid discovered orbiting the Sun in December last year has revealed a fun surprise: it’s not one asteroid, but two, locked in their own binary orbit around a mutual centre of gravity. The object is called 2017 YE5 (as in “YE5 a surprise second asteroid, hooray!”)*, and when it was first detected on 21 December 2017, it was angled in such … Continue reading
One of the Newly Discovered Moon’s of Jupiter Behaves Strangely
If we were to host a system-wide beauty contest among the planets and accepted natural satellites as a valid skill, Jupiter would have a pretty unfair advantage. Nothing against Earth’s beautiful Luna, but according to The Verge the number of confirmed moons around Jupiter is now up to 79, thanks to ten – or 12, depending on who’s counting and … Continue reading
Astronomers Find 12 New Moons Orbiting Jupiter
We still haven’t even learned or discovered everything in our own solar system even after all these years.. amazing! via RT: Astronomers have discovered a dozen new moons orbiting Jupiter, but one could spell disaster for the others – 1km-wide “oddball” moving in the opposite direction to the other 78 objects circling the gas giant. A team led by Scott … Continue reading
Epic Image of Galactic Center Created Using 64 South African Telescopes
You’re looking at the center of our galactic home, the Milky Way, as imaged by 64 radio telescopes in the South African wilderness. Scientists released this image today to inaugurate the completed MeerKAT radio telescope. But these scopes form part of an even more ambitious project: the Square Kilometer Array, a joint effort to build the world’s largest telescope, spanning … Continue reading
Cosmic Rays from Distant Binary Star System Eta Carinae, Bombarding Earth
For years, Earth has been bombarded by cosmic rays emanating from a mysterious source astronomers couldn’t identify. Now, new research conducted with the help of NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope has finally tracked down the source of these rays: Eta Carinae, a binary star system just 10,000 light-years away. In an event called the Great Eruption of 1838, the system created … Continue reading
Analysis of Meteorite Suggests Mars Had Habitable Conditions 100 Million Years Before Earth
A meteorite that crashed on Earth in the Sahara Desert in 2011 is thought to have originated from Mars! via Sputniknews: Turns out that Mars’ crust formed only 20 million years after the formation of the Solar System, further suggesting it also got a 100-million-year jump on Earth in terms of habitability, according to a new study published in the … Continue reading
