Astronomy Cast Ep. 514: Planetary Protection Protocols

   13 hours ago   |  Universe Today

As we send rovers and landers to other worlds, we have to think about the tiny microbial astronauts we’re sending along with us. In fact, NASA is so concerned about infecting other worlds that it has established the planetary protection protocols. Just to be safe. We usually record Astronomy Cast every Friday at 3:00 pm …
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Jupiter Meets Venus at Dawn in a Close Conjunction

   21 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

You might be asking yourself: Where have all the planets gone? With Mars past its epic opposition in 2018 and still lingering in the evening sky, all other naked eye planets are loitering in the early dawn for January 2019. Sure, it’s cold outside this month for folks up north, but January dawn skies offer …
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Titan?s Thick Clouds Obscure our View, but Cassini Took these Images in Infrared, Showing the Moon?s Surface Features

   21 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

Saturn’s moon Titan is a very strange place. It’s surrounded by a dense, opaque atmosphere, the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere to speak of. It has lakes of liquid methane on its surface, maybe some cryovolcanoes, and some scientists speculate that it could support a form of life. Very weird life. …
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Geothermal Heating Could Make Life Possible on the Super Earth Planet at Barnard?s Star

   20 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

In 2018, scientists announced the discovery of a extrasolar planet orbiting Barnard’s star, an M-type (red dwarf) that is just 6 light years away. Using the Radial Velocity method, the research team responsible for the discovery determined that this exoplanet (Barnard’s Star b) was at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth and experienced average …
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Weekly Space Hangout: Jan 16, 2019: Paul MacNeal of JPL?s Annual Invention Challenge

   20 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Dr. Pamela Gay (astronomycast.com / cosmoquest.org / @starstryder) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org) This week’s guest Paul MacNeal, a mechanical systems engineer at JPL, created the Annual Invention Challenge twenty-one years ago after helping his son with an extra credit assignment. Since then, teams of high …
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Seeding the Milky Way with Life Using Genesis Missions

   19 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

Claudius Gros, the founder of Project Genesis, makes the case that when it comes to extrasolar planets, the rules of planetary protection need not apply.
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Cassini Saw Rain Falling at Titan?s North Pole

   19 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

The Cassini mission to Saturn ended in September 2017, but the data it gathered during its 13 year mission is still yielding scientific results. On the heels of a newly-released global image of Saturn’s moon Titan comes another discovery: Rainfall at Titan’s north pole. Climate models developed by scientists during Cassini’s mission concluded that rain …
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A Few Days Ago, Asteroid ‘2019 AG3’ Narrowly Missed The Earth’s Surface

   18 Jan 01:00:01   |  duncanfatt

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CERN is Planning to Build a Much Larger Particle Collider. Much, Much, Larger.

   18 Jan 01:00:01   |  Universe Today

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, wants to build a particle collider that will dwarf the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC has made important discoveries, and planned upgrades to its power ensures it will keep working on physics problems into the future. But eventually, it won’t be enough to unlock the secrets of …
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