With the discovery of more than 5,600 planets orbiting other stars and images from robots we have sent to all the planets in our solar system, it is becoming abundantly clear that Earth is unique among worlds. Almost all of the exoplanets scientists have discovered since the 1990s fall into four main types: gas giants like Jupiter … Read more
Last November, the Voyager 1 spacecraft began sending gibberish radio signals back to Earth. Engineers have now identified the problem, but trying to repair a 46-year-old device on a craft 24 billion kilometres from Earth is not easy. Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 were both launched in 1977 on a reconnaissance mission to … Read more
NEW DELHI: US space scientists on Thursday revealed Nasa‘s upcoming mission to explore one of Jupiter‘s icy moons in search of extraterrestrial life. The spacecraft, named Clipper, is scheduled to launch in October towards Europa, a moon with potential for life. Bob Pappalardo, the project scientist, emphasized Nasa’s quest to uncover the existence of life … Read more
The citizen science program Active Asteroids is looking for volunteers from the public to sift through astronomical photographs of asteroids to look for signs of tails which may indicate the presence of water. Active asteroids are rare small bodies in our solar system with an asteroid-like orbit and comet-like tail. Spotting them is a bit … Read more
NEW DELHI: Nasa on Tuesday shared an image of Jupiter‘s moon Io. The image showed Io against the backdrop of space, illuminated by sunlight from the right with its surface displaying volcanic calderas, lava flows, and mountains casting shadows, Nasa said in a post.The post by Nasa on Instagram said, “Io is caught in a … Read more
ARIZONA: (The Conversation) Planets orbit their parent stars while separated by enormous distances – in our solar system, planets are like grains of sand in a region the size of a football field. The time that planets take to orbit their suns have no specific relationship to each other. But sometimes, their orbits display striking … Read more
In a celestial spectacle set to unfold on the night of December 14, sky gazers are in for a rare double treat as the annual Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak, coinciding with the unexpected debut of a new meteor shower associated with comet 46P/Wirtanen. A recent study by a team of international researchers revealed … Read more
