When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sailed past Pluto on July 14th, 2015, it gathered a treasure trove of information regarding what used to be the 9th planet. Among the most intriguing was an odd “heart shaped” feature on Pluto’s surface which is clearly of more recent origin than what surrounds it. Now, a new study […]
One ongoing subject of fascination at InnerSpace is the cascade of discoveries of new objects at the extreme reaches of the solar system. Although all are incredibly distant, and may strike many as cold, dim, dirty balls of ice and rock, the fact that we still don’t know what all is out there is […]
A new study of Pluto’s massive chasms strongly suggests that the former planet is concealing a liquid water ocean beneath its bizarre and wildly varying surface. From the abstract in Geophysical Research Letters: The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water […]
Here is yet another entry in the “look how fascinating our solar system is” column, courtesy of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. From NASA.gov: Hubble Discovers Moon Orbiting the Dwarf Planet Makemake Peering to the outskirts of our solar system, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second […]
It will still be quite some time before scientists receive all the 50 gigabits of data gathered by the New Horizons probe as it sped past Pluto’s system last July, but the first comprehensive set of papers to be published from the history making mission have come out in the journal Science. According to New Horizons […]
From NASA, comments follow: “New data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft point to more prevalent water ice on Pluto’s surface than previously thought. This false-color image, derived from observations in infrared light by the Ralph/Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) instrument, shows where the spectral features of water ice are abundant on Pluto’s surface. It […]
First there was the Ed Wood classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space. Now, a fascinating bit of astronomical detective work from researchers at Caltech may have come up with the best evidence yet that somewhere well beyond the Kuiper Belt, our solar system harbors a massive, as yet undiscovered world they have dubbed “Planet Nine.” […]
Two new discoveries, one at the farthest boundary of our solar system, and one orbiting a dim star 39 light years add to a remarkable week of planetary news. First up is V774101, a 300-600 mile diameter world discovered orbiting at a distance 3 times further out than Pluto, and 103 times further than Earth […]
Cryovolcanoes. It sounds like the title to yet another of the Syfy Channel’s horrendous Saturday night movies. Instead, it is only one of a stunning series of discoveries taken from the agonizingly slow (4 kilobits per second) stream of data being transmitted by the New Horizons spacecraft as it speeds away from the Pluto-Charon system. […]
Ostensibly we go, or send our machines, out into space for the advancement of science. It is a goal NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to the Pluto – Charon system has clearly achieved and then some. As the quality of imaging systems has vastly improved over earlier missions however, what continues to delight and to invoke […]
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