Astronomy Archives - rustleeast

Study: Asteroid Psyche Originated beyond Solar System’s Snow Line and Later Migrated to Main Belt

By News Staff August 13, 2024

Planetary scientists using spectral data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed the detection of hydroxyl molecules on the surface of the metallic asteroid Psyche. The presence of…

Astronomers Propose New Definition of Planet

By News Staff July 18, 2024

Established in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union, the current definition specifies that to qualify as a planet, a celestial body must orbit the Sun within our Solar System. But…

Scientists Revise Famous Drake Equation

By News Staff July 2, 2024

Within the uncertainties of involved astronomical and biological parameters, the Drake equation typically predicts that there should be many exoplanets (< 100 to millions) in our Milky Way Galaxy hosting active,…

Study: Jupiter’s Moon Io Has Been Volcanically Active for All of Its History

By News Staff April 24, 2024

Sulfur and chlorine isotopes in Io’s atmosphere indicate that it has been volcanically active for the entire 4.57 billion-year history of the Solar System. This global view of Io was…

Uninhabitable Venus Offers Lessons about Potential for Extraterrestrial Life

By News Staff April 23, 2024

Fully understanding how a rocky planet becomes habitable and remains so is a fundamental challenge for planetary scientists and astrobiologists, given the diversity and complexity of intrinsic and extrinsic processes…

SOHO Observatory Discovers Its 5,000th Comet

By News Staff March 29, 2024

On March 25, 2024, Hanjie Tan, an astronomy Ph.D. student in Prague, Czech Republic, spotted a comet in an image from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which…

Tricarbon Molecule Detected in Atmosphere of Titan

By Natali Anderson March 18, 2024

The tricarbon molecule (C3) is likely produced in the upper atmosphere of Titan by the reaction of abundant acetylene with atomic carbon. This view of Titan is among the last…

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…

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…