Pluto’s atmosphere is cold and hazy. Recent observations have shown it to be much colder than predicted theoretically, suggesting an unknown cooling mechanism. Atmospheric gas molecules, particularly water vapour, have been proposed as a coolant; however, because Pluto’s thermal structure is expected to be in radiative–conductive equilibrium, the required water …
by the end of the eighteenth century, five planets, excluding the Earth, were known to humankind. These planets were visible to the naked eye, and were ascribed godlike qualities in all ancient cosmologies. It was only in 1781 that an amateur astronomer, W Herschel, discovered Uranus
in an ambitious revival of exploration of Mars, two us spacecraft have approached the planet. One spacecraft has studied the atmosphere, prospects of water and observed weather through the seasons of a full Martian year (687 days). The second craft is on course for a landing on December 3 at …
what makes the Great Red Spot red? And why has it lasted so long? These are some of the questions scientists who have spent years studying Jupiter have not found an answer to. Now Kevin Baines, a planetary scientist at National Aeronautics and Space Research's ( nasa ) Jet Propulsion …
The Red Planet Mars never ceases to surprise scientists. The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has found patterns of surface rock which are magnetised. These are stripes of magnetic material which point alternately in one or the other direction. These patterns resemble the patterns observed at mid-ocean rift zones on Earth. …
swirling around Jupiter at thousands of miles an hour is a huge sheet of electically charged gas and dust that extends outward about two million miles. This plasma sheet rotates like a filmy skirt on a spinning ice-skater. The gas and dust are from volcanoes on the moon Io. Something …
the first telescope images of the dust rings around distant stars reveal startling new evidence of planets formed beyond the Solar System. This was stated by astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, usa. Pictures of two distant stars from the Hubble Space Telescope show …
THE first telescope images of dust rings around distant stars reveal powerful new evidence of planets formed beyond the solar system. This was stated by US astronomers at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, USA. Pictures from the Hubble space telescope of two distant stars show …
for the National Space and Aeronautics Administration (nasa ), 1999 began with a bang. On January 4, the ambitious Mars Polar Lander took off successfully from the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Carnival, Florida, usa. It is expected to touch down on Mars on December 3, 1999, after releasing a …
Mars Express, the European Space Agency's planned mission to the fourth stone from the Sun, Mars, received the green signal from all the 14 national delegations recently. Due to be launched sometime in the year 2003, Mars Express will be the first orbiter to use radar to penetrate the Martian …
WAGES from the Galileo spacecraft show conclusively that the three faint rings around Jupiter come from moon dust spiralling down into the planet's atmosphere. No one knew that the rings existed until the Voyager spaceprobe few by the planet in 1979. The dusty rings are visible only when light hits …
LIFE on the Earth was a result of a momentous event in the pre-Cambrian era (one billion to two billion years ago). Levels of oxygen rose in the planet's atmosphere, leading to an explosive development of life. But the increase in oxygen levels and its dating has always been somewhat …
BLACK HOLES are the darkest objects in the Cosmos and in our understanding. Scientists conjecture that these compact objects are formed when a dying star explodes and the matter collapses in a very small region of space. The matter density is so high that the gravity of the object is …
A number of mysteries including why Saturn appears to be much younger than the rest of the planets may soon be resolved. Gilbert Collins and his colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA, are working to unearth the reality. They have conducted studies with vast quantities of …
In 1976 NASA's Viking spacecraft snapped a photograph of a feature on Mars that was startlingly familiar to all Earthlings: part of the rocky surface looked just like a human face. Most interpreted this Martian Mount Rushmore as a trick of light and shadow, but others credited it to alien …
FROM Einstein's equations of general relativity, Austrian physicists Joseph Lense and Hans Thirring derived in 1918 that an object that spins also twists the fabric of space-time around it. The Lense-Thirring effect is so small, however, that it has been hard to measure. An international team of Italian, Spanish and …
UNUSUALLY detailed pictures taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA'S) unmanned spacecraft Galileo reveal that Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede has geologic hints of an early sub-surface ocean. Also seen was a chain of 13 craters, which were probably formed by impacts from a broken comet similar to the …
Satellites around the so-called giant planets in our solar system were thought to be of two broad types: large, regular satellites that are in almost circular equatorial orbits and small, irregular ones that have highly inclined orbits. Till now, the only exception to this was Uranus, which was thought to …
It beats the poet's imagination. Jupiter's moon Io is the closest to the fire and brimstone of hell in the Bible. The most volcanically active body known to humans is dotted by volcanic eruptions on the sulphurous surface. The Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter has now reported a surface temperature of …
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has fixed the orbit of its Mars Global Surveyor so that the spaceprobe can spend this summer clicking snaps of the Martian landscape, including the controversial "Face on Mars', spotted years back by the Viking mission. Other targets include the nostalgic Viking and …
