Topic: Pamela Gay
Ancient Crater Found Hiding in Australia

Ancient Crater Found Hiding in Australia

I want to bring you a story that looks to rewrite a bit of our world's history. Researchers studying the geology of an Australian feature called the North Pole Dome, despite being located in Western Australia, found evidence that the feature is associated with a 3.5 billion year old impact. The object that stuck was more than 100 kilometers across and hit at more than 36,000 km/hr. This massive impact turned the local minerals into what are called shatter cones - a kind of fractured rock only found where impacts have occurred. This impact is more than a billion years older than the next...

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When Orbits Go Weird

When Orbits Go Weird

orbital path of transiting exoplanet TIC 241249530 b As of the day of this recording, Aug 8, 2024, more than 5600 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting more than 4000 alien stars. Within these systems we are regularly finding things our experiences with our own...

JWST Catches Difference in Sunrise and Sunset

JWST Catches Difference in Sunrise and Sunset

an artist's concept of the exoplanet WASP-43b Anyone who likes to exercise outside can tell you the sunrise side of the day is far cooler than the evening twilight. Here on Earth, with our rotating world, this is easy to understand. Throughout the night, our planet...

All the Planets Science Can Design

All the Planets Science Can Design

Before we go, I just want to take a moment to share something beautiful. Image credit: Martin Vargic Out of the blue, I received an email from artist and infographic designer Martin Vargic, and I have to admit, few random email have been quite so pleasing. He just...

Titan’s Lakes May Have Shoreline Erosion

Titan’s Lakes May Have Shoreline Erosion

Image Credit: Cassini Mission Here on Earth we often talk about planetary analogues. These are areas where the landscape here on our planet is geological similar to other worlds. There are regions in the Atacama desert, for instance, that are very similar to Mars. ...

Jupiter’s Not-enduring Red Spot

Jupiter’s Not-enduring Red Spot

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Justin Cowart It turns out, Jupiter likes to have giant red spots, but it doesn’t always have the same giant red spot. New research led by Agustin Sanchez-Lavega and appearing in Geophysical Research letters...

Vibrant Auroras shine on Mars

Vibrant Auroras shine on Mars

The purple color in this video shows auroras on Mars’ nightside as detected by the ultraviolet instrument aboard NASA’s MAVEN orbiter between May 14 and 20, 2024. The brighter the purple, the more auroras that were present. Credit: NASA/University of...

Ep. 2.24: JWST Reveals Star Formation Details

Ep. 2.24: JWST Reveals Star Formation Details

Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including Mars Perseverance Rover fords an ancient river, black holes sometimes form like baby stars, and this week's tales from the launch pad. We also look in detail at how JWST images...