Picking up ultra-weak signals from spacecraft exploring deep in our Solar System requires cooling a detector to within a few degrees of absolute zero. Thanks to ESA’s support, the technology is now available in Europe for the first time. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Can this coastal launch site drive commercial development of the Solar System’s frontiers? Gilberto Salinas, Executive VP, Brownsville Economic Development Corporation, discusses a pending SpaceX private spaceport with SPACE.com’s @DavidSkyBrody. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
This beautiful space wallpaper is an artist’s impression of an exoplanet seen from its moon. The diversity of exoplanets is large — more than 800 planets outside the Solar System have been found to date, with thousands more waiting to be confirmed.
From: http://www.space.com/20650-exoplanet-view-from-its-moon-space-wallpaper.html
(Phys.org) —Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains up to 250 miles high. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon’s interior is heated, according to NASA and European Space Agency researchers. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
A team of astronomers, including Quinn Konopacky of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, has made the most detailed examination yet of the atmosphere of a Jupiter-like planet beyond our Solar System. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Astronomers on Wednesday said they had found the smallest planet ever spotted beyond our Solar System, a scorched and uninhabitable mini-world tinier than Mercury. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Ever since the Huygens probe landed on Titan back in January 2005, sending us our first tantalizing and oh-so-brief glimpses of the moon’s murky, pebbly surface, researchers have been dreaming up ways to explore further… after all, what’s more intriguing than a world in our own Solar System that’s basically a miniature version of an early Earth (even if it’s quite a few orders of magnitude chillier?)
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
A brief rundown of the intrepid spacecraft currently sending data home from beyond Earth orbit.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Space.com
