Topic: Solar Systems
2024 PT: That’s No Moon – That’s a Piece of a Moon!

2024 PT: That’s No Moon – That’s a Piece of a Moon!

by | Feb 12, 2025 |

Asteroid 2024 PT5's orbit around the Sun (image credit: NASA) Understanding our world and the universe beyond requires a lot of observation to be combined with a lot of knowledge and amazing creativity. Last year, a potentially hazardous object, cataloged as 2024 PT5, was discovered on an Earth-crossing orbit. While it didn’t remain above zero on the Torino Scale for very long, it certainly caught the eye of planetary scientists who were intrigued by its orbit that kept bringing it near Earth on lingering passes. Classified as a quasi-mini-moon, it has an appearance that twins our OG Moon in...

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When Orbits Go Weird

When Orbits Go Weird

by | Aug 14, 2024 |

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

by | Aug 14, 2024 |

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...

Titan’s Lakes May Have Shoreline Erosion

Titan’s Lakes May Have Shoreline Erosion

by | Jul 23, 2024 |

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. ...

Lava Lakes on Io Images in Infrared

Lava Lakes on Io Images in Infrared

by | Jul 23, 2024 |

I don’t think there is an astronomer who doesn’t love a pretty high resolution image of …well… pretty much anything in space. Give me a crisp clear galaxy, or a nebula, or even a quiet frost field on another planet and I will happily stare at the pretty picture. But...

Jupiter’s Not-enduring Red Spot

Jupiter’s Not-enduring Red Spot

by | Jul 23, 2024 |

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

by | Jul 4, 2024 |

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...

Mars Rover Finds Way To Ford Ancient River

Mars Rover Finds Way To Ford Ancient River

by | Jul 2, 2024 |

a map of Percy's path The Perseverance rover has been making its way along the coast line of a long dried up river that once allowed water to drain from Jezero Crater.  Today, the Neretva Vallis river channel isn’t just dry, it’s filled with sand dunes… And Sand Dunes...

Calculating Pluto’s Oceans

Calculating Pluto’s Oceans

by | Jun 20, 2024 |

While amazing data is the start of amazing research, it takes a lot of calculations and models to truly understand what the data mean.  Nine years after the New Horizons mission flew past Pluto and discovered it has mountains of ice, and a strangely cracked landscape,...