Cosmic to Quantum

The latest posts tagged with “moon”

Thursday — March 29, 2012
NASA Spacecraft Samples a Snowing Moon NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed that Enceladus, a tiny moon orbiting beyond Saturn’s rings, may be capable of hosting some of the life forms found on Earth, NASA Science News reported today. Planetary scientists using Cassini’s spectrometers found that more than 90 jets near the moon’s south pole are spurting water vapor, organic material, salt and icy particles through fissures. Essentially, it is snowing on Enceladus, and the snow’s composition is microbe-friendly, making this moon a prime candidate for gathering samples in the search for life. “We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out. And voilà…we have what we came for,” Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for the Cassini spacecraft, said in the NASA report. More critical reading and viewing to understand what we’ve learned about Saturn’s moons: - An image of four distinct plums at the south pole of Enceladus, from Cassini’s mission news earlier this week. - Astrobiology.com’s explanation with an image of the “tiger stripes,” or fissures where water and ice sprays near the south pole of Enceladus. - Scientific American‘s coverage last year of the discovery of water beneath Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. - Smithsonian’s story on Saturn’s two types of moons: those like Enceladus are similar to moons around other giant planets, such as Jupiter; the others are tiny, icy moonlets that reside on the outer edges of Saturn’s rings. They weren’t discovered until about 8 years ago when the Cassinispacecraft began imaging the Saturn system, and they were an unexpected find. - A study published in Nature in 2010 found that Saturn’s moons formed from the accretion of material in the planet’s rings. When ring material moves beyond a certain distance from the planet—called the Roche limit—it becomes gravitationally unstable and clumps up to form the tiny moons. - And Smithsonian’s story that year about the mystery of Saturn’s walnut-shaped moon, Iapetus. What else have you read that’s great about Saturn’s moons? Let us know in the comments.

NASA Spacecraft Samples a Snowing Moon

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed that Enceladus, a tiny moon orbiting beyond Saturn’s rings, may be capable of hosting some of the life forms found on Earth, NASA Science News reported today.

Planetary scientists using Cassini’s spectrometers found that more than 90 jets near the moon’s south pole are spurting water vapor, organic material, salt and icy particles through fissures. Essentially, it is snowing on Enceladus, and the snow’s composition is microbe-friendly, making this moon a prime candidate for gathering samples in the search for life.

“We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out. And voilà…we have what we came for,” Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for the Cassini spacecraft, said in the NASA report.

More critical reading and viewing to understand what we’ve learned about Saturn’s moons:

- An image of four distinct plums at the south pole of Enceladus, from Cassini’s mission news earlier this week.

- Astrobiology.com’s explanation with an image of the “tiger stripes,” or fissures where water and ice sprays near the south pole of Enceladus.

- Scientific American‘s coverage last year of the discovery of water beneath Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.

- Smithsonian’s story on Saturn’s two types of moons: those like Enceladus are similar to moons around other giant planets, such as Jupiter; the others are tiny, icy moonlets that reside on the outer edges of Saturn’s rings. They weren’t discovered until about 8 years ago when the Cassinispacecraft began imaging the Saturn system, and they were an unexpected find.

- A study published in Nature in 2010 found that Saturn’s moons formed from the accretion of material in the planet’s rings. When ring material moves beyond a certain distance from the planet—called the Roche limit—it becomes gravitationally unstable and clumps up to form the tiny moons.

- And Smithsonian’s story that year about the mystery of Saturn’s walnut-shaped moon, Iapetus.

What else have you read that’s great about Saturn’s moons? Let us know in the comments.

Permalink  Tags moon Tags astronomy Tags science Tags milky way Tags solar system Tags earth Tags nasa Tags snow Tags nature Notes 4 notes

 
Monday — March 19, 2012

National Geographic’s Amazing Hubble Images


(View the entire photoset here)

Permalink  Tags Astronomy Tags astrophysics Tags space Tags cosmic Tags cosmology Tags nebulae Tags nebula Tags physics Tags science Tags national geographic Tags galaxy Tags stars Tags moon Tags planetary Tags planets Notes 20,101 notes

 
Thursday — January 26, 2012
instituteofphysics: First Picture of the Earth and Moon in a Single Frame Image: Nasa

instituteofphysics:

First Picture of the Earth and Moon in a Single Frame

Image: Nasa

This post was reblogged from Physics Pics.

Permalink  Tags Earth Tags moon Tags frame Tags photography Tags NASA Notes 18 notes

 
Tuesday — January 24, 2012

“Tatooine” Planet With Two Suns Could Host Habitable Moon?

NASA mission may be first to find alien moon, expert says.

A new planet found last fall may be orbiting two stars, but it’s far from a real-life Tatooine. Dubbed Kepler-16b, the world is a cold, Saturn-size gas giant with little chance of hosting desert farmers like the fictional Star Wars world.

But according to new computer simulations, the Kepler-16 stars may still shine on a world fit for life—a hypothetical Earthlike moon orbiting Kepler-16b.

Kepler-16b was discovered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, which looks for dips in starlight as a planet transits—or passes in front of—a star, as seen from Earth.

For the new study, Billy Quarles, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Arlington, and colleagues simulated several possible configurations for a theoretical Earth-mass world in the Kepler-16 system.

The team started by drawing up a “laundry list of parameters” for defining the habitable zone—the region around a star where a planet gets enough heat to host liquid water, essential for life as we know it—Quarles said Monday during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. (Read More)

Victoria Jaggard in Austin, Texas

National Geographic News

Permalink  Tags Astronomy Tags Tatooine Tags habitable Tags moon Tags planet Tags sun Tags National Geographic Notes 5 notes

 
Thursday — December 22, 2011

Earth Must Have Another Moon, Say Astronomers →

I’m going to offhandedly reblog things for a little bit until I get my things together. IT WILL BE SOON; I PROMISE. 

This post was reblogged from DiscoveryNews.

Permalink  Tags Astronomy Tags Moon Tags Earth Notes 133 notes

 

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