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 …
The nearly 900kg Nasa’s Curiosity rover which touched down on the Red Planet’s Gale Grater on August 6 has “discovered hints of organic compounds which could aid primitive life,’’ mission scientists announced at a media briefing on Thursday, on the opening day of the American Geophysical Union meeting at San …
Mercury is as cold as ice. Indeed, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, possesses a lot of ice — 100 billion to one trillion tonnes — scientists working with Nasa’s Messenger spacecraft reported on Thursday. Sean C Solomon, the principal investigator for Messenger, said there was enough ice there …
Scientists on Thursday announced new evidence that Mercury, the planet orbiting nearest the sun, hosts massive caches of ice and revealed new information on how water reached our solar system’s inner planets. “The new data indicate the water ice in Mercury’s polar regions, if spread over an area the size …
India plans to launch a space probe that will orbit Mars in November 2013, a senior official from the country's space research establishment said on Monday. "We are scheduling to launch the Mars mission November 27, 2013 when the red planet will be closer to the earth," K. Radhakrishnan, chairman …
A team of astronomers has found two planets orbiting around a pair of stars roughly 5,000 light years away from the Earth, declaring it the first multi-planet system centering a binary star. Named as Kepler-47, the transiting circumbinary multi-planet system, as it is academically described, has made the scientists believe …
The US space agency has just landed a huge new robot rover on Mars. The one-tonne vehicle, known as Curiosity, was reported to have landed in a deep crater near the planet's equator at 06:32 BST (05:32 GMT). It will now embark on a mission of at least two years …
Scientists poring over data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope have discovered a world outside its field of view, demonstrating a new technique for finding planets beyond the Solar System, scientists reported on Thursday. From its vantage point in space, Kepler stares at about 150,000 sun-like stars located a few …
Evidence of liquid water on Mars was also found in 2006. How is the latest finding different? There are a lot of gullies on the crater walls of Mars. Occasionally we see (by comparing images taken at different times) that some material has flowed down these gullies. The paper in …
A study using the Herschel space telescope aimed to measure the fraction of deuterium, a rare type of hydrogen, present in the comet’s water. Like our oceans, it had half the amount of deuterium seen from other comets. The result, published in Nature, hints at the idea that much of …
Scientists have discovered that the upper atmosphere of Mars contains up to a hundred times more water than previously thought, a finding they say could change our understanding of the Martian climate. The discovery, published in the journal Science, also suggested that the Red Planet might have contained lot more …
From double sunrise to double sunset the show goes on, always changing. Sometimes the orange sun rises first. Sometimes it is the red one, although they are never far apart in the sky and you can see them moving around each other, casting double shadows across the firmament and periodically …
The youngest extra-solar planet, six times the mass of Jupiter -- 1.9x1027 kg, has been discovered. The giant planet named BD+20 1790b is only 35 million years old and orbits a young active central star at a distance closer than Mer- cury orbits the sun. An international team of astronomers …
International space missions have found ice on the moon and more evidence of ice on Mars -- good news for future settlements and also for scientists looking for extraterrestrial life. Four reports published in Friday's issue of the journal Science show clear evidence of water, likely frozen, on the desert …
A Canadian astronaut aboard the International Space Station said on Sunday it looks like Earth's ice caps have melted a bit since he was last in orbit 12 years ago. Bob Thirsk, who is two months into a planned six-month stay aboard the station, said he is mostly in awe …
A large comet or asteroid has slammed into the Jupiter, creating an impact site the size of Earth, pictures by an Australian amateur astronomer show. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the discovery using its large infrared telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, said computer programer Anthony Wesley, …
The next two decades will see another human being setting foot on the moon--------- On July 20, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was one of those moments when the world watched with awe as men took their first steps onto another world. …
The next two decades will see another human being setting foot on the moon--------- On July 20, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was one of those moments when the world watched with awe as men took their first steps onto another world. …
evolution Link...or is it? A well-preserved fossil of primitive lemur Darwinius masilla, nicknamed Ida is believed to represent the point from which the group of monkeys, apes and humans (anthropoids) evolved. The fossil lacks the traits which characterize a modern lemur, a non-human primate. Instead it has a bone in …
Mars may have once been both cold and wet, researchers said Wednesday, suggesting a freezing Martian landscape could still have produced water needed to sustain life. There has been debate over the issue because with some researchers believing water likely formed many features of the planet's landscape and others pointing …
