News Staff, Author at rustleeast

NASA Scientists Unveil Design for Europa Clipper’s ‘Golden Record’

By News Staff March 12, 2024

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a triangular metal plate with a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s moon Europa. This side of a…

Europa Produces Less Oxygen than Previously Thought

By News Staff March 4, 2024

Using data from the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have calculated the rate of oxygen being produced at Jupiter’s icy moon Europa to…

Mars Express Spots Sand Dunes and Ice Layers at Martian North Pole

By News Staff March 1, 2024

New images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft show the terrain surrounding the permanent north polar ice cap of Mars. This image from ESA’s…

Study: Most Sightings of UAPs Occur in American West

By News Staff March 1, 2024

Sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs), have been reported throughout history. Given the potential security and safety risks they pose, as well as…

Asteroid Moonlet Dimorphos May Have Been Reshaped Following Impact from NASA’s DART Mission

By News Staff February 29, 2024

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully impacted Dimorphos, the natural satellite of the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos. New numerical simulations indicate that the DART…

Ancient Mars May Have Had Hydrothermal Systems

By News Staff February 22, 2024

The history of water on Mars is a puzzle that is of interest to planetary scientists as well as the general public. The Red Planet currently has water in the…

Kuiper Belt May Be Much Larger than Previously Estimated

By News Staff February 20, 2024

Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are thought to be the dominant source of interplanetary dust particles in the outer Solar System due to both collisions between KBOs and their continual bombardment…

Titan Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say

By News Staff February 20, 2024

Saturn’s moon Titan has an organic-rich atmosphere and surface with a subsurface ocean that may represent a habitable environment. In a new study, astrobiologists determined the amount of organic material…

Webb Finds Evidence of Hydrothermal Processes in Interiors of Eris and Makemake

By News Staff February 15, 2024

The icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake have surfaces bearing methane ice of unknown origin. According to an analysis of data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, Eris and…

SOFIA Detects Molecular Water on Nominally Dry Asteroids

By News Staff February 13, 2024

Using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), astronomers have obtained mid-infrared spectra of four S-type (silicate-rich) asteroids: Iris, Parthenope, Melpomene, and Massalia. They’ve detected…