“It’s a shame we don’t have it naturally here on earth, but on Jupiter, there are oceans of metallic hydrogen. We want to find out how these oceans give rise to Jupiter’s enormous magnetic field,” observed Mohamed Zaghoo with the University of Rochester’s Laboratory of Laser Energetics (LLE) and colleague Gilbert ‘Rip’ Collins, director of the high-energy-density physics program. Astrophysicists have long thought that terrestrial planets with magnetic fields are better able to sustain gaseous atmospheres and are more likely to harbor life.
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
“Ceres –the only dwarf planet in the inner Solar System–has gained a pivotal role in assessing the origin, evolution and distribution of organic species across the inner solar system,” said Southwest Research Institute scientist Simone Marchi, about high abundance of carbon on Ceres’ near surface, which could be due to an excess of organic matter, possibly formed locally due to water-rocks chemistry.”
Vast stores of helium from the Big Bang hidden in the Earth’s Core hint that the planet formed inside a solar nebula. A new study reports that helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas with two protons and only one neutron in its nucleus, is leaking out of Earth’s core. Although normal helium with two protons and two neutrons can be fused within the interiors of stars, almost all helium-3 is from the Big Bang. The gas leak of helium-3 adds evidence that Earth formed inside a dense solar nebula, which has long been debated.
Scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission team have revealed a strange world of massive ice volcanoes and a possible hidden ocean. The NASA astronomers have determined that multiple episodes of cryovolcanism may have created some kinds of surface structures on Pluto, the likes of which are not seen anywhere else in the solar system. Material expelled from below the surface of this distant, icy planet could have created a region of large domes and rises flanked by hills, mounds, and depressions. New Horizons was NASA’s mission to make the first exploration of Pluto and its system of five moons with its July, 2015 flyby.
The formation of life from raw chemicals was more favorable in the early phases of our Solar System
“Venus is like Earth in so many ways,” explained the late physicist, Stephen Hawking. “A sort of kissing cousin. She’s almost the same size as Earth, a touch closer to the Sun. And, she has an atmosphere that could crush a submarine.”
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
The Galaxy Report newsletter brings you daily news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.
Mystery of Jupiter’s Metallic Oceans and Enormous Magnetic Field
Earth is ‘Well-Hidden’ from Extraterrestrial Civilizations Hunting for Habitable Planets (The Galaxy Report)
“First Second After” –Gravitational Waves Unveil Secrets of the Big Bang
Drake Equation for Alien Intelligence is More Important Than Ever (Planet Earth Report)Scanning Images for Alien Signals to Can a Universe Be Created from Nothing?
The Milky Way Is Like an Ecosystem: The Center Is Where the Action IsDid the Big Bang Make Cracks in Spacetime to What Would Intelligent Aliens Mean? (The Galaxy Report)
How Earth Avoided a Mars-like Fate to Why is There No Planet B? (Planet Earth Report)
