Tag Archives: planetary

On Sept. 11, 2022, engineers at a flight control center in Turin, Italy, sent a radio signal into deep space. Its destination was NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft flying toward an asteroid more than 5 million miles away. The message prompted the spacecraft to execute a series of pre-programmed commands that caused a small, shoebox-sized satellite contributed by the …

On Sept. 11, 2022, engineers at a flight control center in Turin, Italy, sent a radio signal into deep space. Its destination was NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft flying toward an asteroid more than 5 million miles away. The message prompted the spacecraft to execute a series of pre-programmed commands that caused a small, shoebox-sized satellite contributed by the …

So much for heliocentrism. An international team of astronomers using observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence of massive planets out there that’re capable of forming their own planetary systems — without a star.  These planets would be the center of something like a mini version of our solar system where other, smaller planets revolve around …

So much for heliocentrism. An international team of astronomers using observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope have found evidence of massive planets out there that’re capable of forming their own planetary systems — without a star.  These planets would be the center of something like a mini version of our solar system where other, smaller planets revolve around …

The Hera mission to follow-up on the aftermath of NASA’s DART asteroid crash has caught sight of two other asteroids in an important test of its camera ahead of its rendezvous its main target: the double space rock system of Didymos and Dimorphos. In September of 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short, slammed into the small …

Webb reveals structures in planetary nebula, sheds new light on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field – NASASpaceFlight.com We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on …

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. (Main) An illustration of a planetary system developing around a free-floating rogue planet (Inset) the JWST. | Credit: Midjourney Our parochial view of planets orbiting a central star — so familiar because it is the layout seen in the solar system — could …

A planetary scientist whose research revealed the possibility of extraterrestrial life on one of Saturn’s moons has been made the first female astronomer royal. Prof Michele Dougherty, a leading space physicist who was a researcher for the Nasa Cassini mission, has been awarded the 350-year-old honorary title. In 2021, Catherine Heymans, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, …

When NASA launched Opportunity and its twin Spirit in 2003, the mission team was aiming for a three-month journey on Mars. According to NASA’s own historical records, each rover was built to function for just 90 sols (about 92 Earth days). Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum, a site scientists picked because it showed signs of a watery past—minerals called hematite, …

Since their discovery in the late 1700s, astronomers have learned that planetary nebulae, or the expanding shell of glowing gas expelled by a low-intermediate mass star late in its life, can come in all shapes and sizes. Most planetary nebula present as circular, elliptical, or bi-polar, but some stray from the norm, as seen in new high-resolution images of planetary …