Latest news with #SolarSystem
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Scientists Have Clear Evidence of Martian Atmosphere 'Sputtering'
For the first time, scientists have caught a key driver of the ongoing erosion of the atmosphere of Mars in action. It took more than nine years' worth of satellite data, but a team led by planetary scientist Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder has finally detected unmistakable signs of atmospheric sputtering. This is, the researchers say, a crucial piece of the puzzle of how Mars lost both its atmosphere and its water. "These results provide a substantial step toward observationally establishing sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere," the team writes in their paper, "and, hence, in determining the history of water and those implications for habitability over time." Atmospheric sputtering is thought to be one of the dominant mechanisms for atmospheric loss in the early Solar System, when the Sun was brighter and more active. It happens when ions are accelerated by the electric field of the Solar wind into the atmosphere of a body – like Mars – that is unprotected by a global magnetic field. The effect is a little bit like when a meteorite smacks into a planet: energy is transferred to the surrounding neutral medium, kicking it up in a spray. But for sputtering, some of the atmospheric atoms and molecules gain enough energy to achieve escape velocity, and off they go, flung into space on a new adventure. It's difficult to observe this process on Mars. It requires simultaneous observation of the flung neutral atoms, and either the ions that smacked into the atmosphere, or the electric field that accelerated them. It also requires simultaneous dayside and nightside observations of Mars, deep into its atmosphere. The only spacecraft with the equipment and orbital configuration to make these observations is NASA's MAVEN. The researchers carefully pored over the data collected by the spacecraft since it arrived in Mars orbit in September 2014, looking to find simultaneous observations of the solar electric field and an upper atmosphere abundance of argon – one of the sputtered particles, used as a tracer for the phenomenon. They found that, above an altitude of 350 kilometers (217 miles), argon densities vary depending on the orientation of the solar wind electric field, compared to argon densities at lower altitudes that remain consistent. The results showed that lighter isotopes of argon vary, leaving behind an excess of heavy argon – a discrepancy that is best explained by active sputtering. This is supported by observations of a solar storm, the outflows of which arrived at Mars in January 2016. During this time, the evidence of sputtering became significantly more pronounced. Not only does this support the team's finding that argon density variations at high Martian altitudes are the result of sputtering, it demonstrates what conditions may have been like billions of years ago, when the Sun was younger and rowdier, undergoing more frequent storm activity. "We find that atmospheric sputtering today is over four times higher than previous predictions and that a solar storm can substantially increase the sputtered yield," the researchers write. "Our results confirm that sputtering is occurring on present-day Mars and could have been the main pathway for atmospheric escape at Mars during the early epochs of our Solar System when the solar activity and extreme ultraviolet intensities were much higher." The results have been published in Science Advances. Chance X-Ray Discovery Reveals Mystery Object 15,000 Light Years Away SpaceX Starship's Latest Test Ends in Destruction Over Indian Ocean Star Caught Orbiting Inside Another Star in Bizarre First
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Redwire Successfully Delivers Onboard Computer for ESA's Comet Interceptor Mission to Study Pristine Comet
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 27, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Redwire Corporation (NYSE: RDW), a leader in space infrastructure for the next generation space economy, announced today that it has successfully delivered the onboard computer for the European Space Agency's (ESA) Comet Interceptor mission. Redwire developed and delivered the onboard computer through a contract with OHB Italia S.p.A. (OHB Italy). ESA's Comet Interceptor will be the first spacecraft to visit a comet coming directly from the outer reaches of the Sun, carrying material untouched since the dawn of the Solar System. Redwire's wholly owned Belgian subsidiary, Redwire Space NV, developed the onboard computer, which is the "brain" of Comet Interceptor. It is designed to monitor and control other spacecraft components, including transmitting critical data to operators on the ground. The onboard computer is part of Redwire's third generation Advanced Data and Power Management System (ADPMS-3). "We are proud to have accomplished this exciting milestone alongside our partners OHB Italy and ESA, which brings the first-of-its-kind Comet Interceptor mission one step closer to launch," said Mike Gold, Redwire President of Civil and International Space Business. "With 25 years of flight heritage, a strong track record of success, and the Redwire team's unparalleled avionics expertise, Redwire's ADPMS-3 is a critical, enabling technology for today's most ambitious European and multinational space missions." The recent delivery follows an acceptance testing campaign, which included vibration, thermal vacuum, and electromagnetic compatibility testing. The onboard computer is currently at OHB Italia headquarters, where it will undergo integration and final acceptance review. Comet Interceptor is scheduled to launch in 2029. The onboard computer is also supporting ESA's Hera mission, Europe's first planetary defense mission and part of a multinational planetary defense effort supporting ESA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission. Redwire's European facility in Belgium has more than 40 years of spaceflight heritage developing spacecraft platforms and success delivering innovative technology for game-changing ESA programs. Redwire was the prime contractor for ESA's Proba-1, Proba-2, and Proba-V missions, which have a combined flight time of 50 years without failure. Redwire continues to support other ESA programs, including Skimsat, a technology demonstrator for a small satellite platform designed to operate in very low Earth orbit; the International Berthing and Docking Mechanism for the lunar Gateway; and the Proba-3 mission, the first precision formation flying mission that will investigate the Sun's corona. About Redwire Redwire Corporation (NYSE:RDW) is a global space infrastructure and innovation company enabling civil, commercial, and national security programs. Redwire's proven and reliable capabilities include avionics, sensors, power solutions, critical structures, mechanisms, radio frequency systems, platforms, missions, and microgravity payloads. Redwire combines decades of flight heritage and proven experience with an agile and innovative culture. Redwire's approximately 750 employees working from 17 facilities located throughout the United States and Europe are committed to building a bold future in space for humanity, pushing the envelope of discovery and science while creating a better world on Earth. For more information, please visit Disclaimer: The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency View source version on Contacts Media Contact: Emily 305-632-9137 OR Media Contact (Redwire Space Europe): Marta 3 250 14 50 Investors: investorrelations@ 904-425-1431 Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Find Jupiter Used to Be More Than Twice Its Current Size
You don't need us to tell you that Jupiter, which has more than twice the mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, is the biggest game in town (other than the Sun, at least.) But believe it or not, it may have once been even bigger. Try more than double its current size, according to new research from Caltech and the University of Michigan — boasting enough volume to fit 2,000 Earths inside it with room to spare. Over time, the bloated world cooled off, contracting to the relatively humbler size it is today. The findings, published in a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy, provide a window into the Solar System's early evolution, around 3.8 million years after the first solids formed. Jupiter, with its enormous gravitational pull — and as the first planet to form — would have played an instrumental role in determining how the orbits of the nascent planets eventually settled. "Our ultimate goal is to understand where we come from, and pinning down the early phases of planet formation is essential to solving the puzzle," co-lead author Konstantin Batygin, a professor of planetary science at Caltech, said in a statement about the work. "This brings us closer to understanding how not only Jupiter but the entire Solar System took shape." The clues to uncovering this early episode of Jupiter's past lie in two of its small moons, Amalthea and Thebe, which exhibit unusual orbits that aren't fully explained by their host's current size. To examine this discrepancy, the researchers bypassed existing planetary formation models and focused on aspects of the Jovian system that could be directly measured, including the orbital dynamics of the tiny moons and the planet's angular momentum. Their calculations revealed that, around 4.5 billion years ago, Jupiter must have had a radius up to 2.5 times greater than it is today. Likewise, its magnetic field — terrifyingly, as it's already 20,000 stronger than the Earth's — would have been a staggering 50 times more powerful. This dramatically shapes our idea of Jupiter in a critical moment in the Solar System's evolution, when the great disk of matter surrounding the Sun called the protoplanetary disk, which gave birth to the planets, evaporated. Mind-boggling as they are, these findings, the researchers say, are consistent with the prevailing core-accretion theory describing how giant planets formed. According to this theory, the giant planets began as heavy, solid cores floating on the farther and colder side of the protoplanetary disk, pulling in the lighter gas molecules surrounding them — first gradually, and then after passing a threshold of mass, much more rapidly. The exact details surrounding the planets' origins are still hotly contested. But the researchers say they've made the most precise measurements to date of primordial Jupiter's size, spin rate, and magnetic conditions, which will be indispensable to furthering our understanding of the Solar System's architecture. "What we've established here is a valuable benchmark," Batygin said. "A point from which we can more confidently reconstruct the evolution of our Solar System." More on astronomy: Astronomers Baffled by a Suspicious, Perfectly Round Sphere in Our Galaxy
Gizmodo
22-05-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
New Minor Planet Spotted Past Pluto, One of the Largest Distant Objects in the Solar System
There's a new frozen oddball orbiting the Sun, and it's not your average space rock. It's a planet—a minor one, to be fair—but one of the largest yet discovered and with an orbit around the Sun that puts our own planet's orbit to shame. The minor world is dubbed 2017 OF201; the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center added the object to its catalog on May 21. Despite its classification, the planet measures somewhere between 290 and 510 miles (470 and 820 kilometers) across. Its upper size limit would put the minor planet in the same wheelhouse as Ceres, the largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, boasting a diameter of about 592 miles (952 km). Astronomers first spotted 2017 OF201 in archival images, but only now is the object officially recognized as a trans-Neptunian object, or TNO. TNOs are bodies in the solar system that orbit the Sun beyond Neptune, which is 30 times more distant from the Sun than the Earth. But 2017 OF201 is superlative even among the distant TNOs; its orbit takes it as far as 838 astronomical units from the Sun—making it nearly 30 times farther than Neptune, which again, is itself 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth is, on average. At its closest, as reported by EarthSky, 2017 OF201 comes within 45 AU of the Sun. That remarkable orbit earns the minor planet the label of an extreme trans-Neptunian object (ETNO), a subset of distant rocks that fuel theories about mysterious gravitational forces at play in the far reaches of the solar system. Which brings us, inevitably, to Planet Nine, the theorized distant world posited as a gravitational explanation for the strange clustering of objects in the Kuiper Belt. Other ideas have been floated to explain the phenomenon—such as a ring of debris exerting gravitational influence, or even a primordial black hole—but nothing grips our human fascination like a distant planet, so far away from our solar system's other worlds that it's never been observed. Planet Nine, if it exists, would have to be a little over six times Earth's mass, with an orbital period of about 7,400 years. The newly cataloged minor planet is big, but not Planet Nine big. Still, discoveries like this keep astronomers buzzing. Just last month, a different team of astronomers found a different slow-moving object beyond Neptune—a would-be Planet Nine candidate, but it's in the wrong place. Objects like those recently reported add to the growing list of bodies that might eventually help pinpoint the elusive Planet Nine—or at least explain the strange movement of objects on the periphery of our solar neighborhood. 2017 OF201 isn't the planetary heavyweight many have been waiting for, but it's a reminder that the solar system is still full of surprises—especially in its frigid, hard-to-see suburbs.
India Today
22-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
Architect of Solar System: New study reveals how Jupiter constructed our world
Jupiter is considered the largest planet in our Solar System, so big that it can fit 1,300 Earths inside. But that's now, there was a time when Jupiter was twice as big as it is gravity of the planet is so strong that astronomers consider it as one of the most influential factors in the evolution and creation of our Solar call it the architect as it played a critical role in shaping the orbital paths of other planets and sculpting the disk of gas and dust from which they formed. A new study now provides first look at Jupiter as it was in the beginning, roughly 3.8 million years after the solar system's first solids formed. Jupiter was significantly larger and had an even more powerful magnetic field. Jupiter's magnetic field at that time was approximately 50 times stronger. (Photo: Nasa) "Our ultimate goal is to understand where we come from, and pinning down the early phases of planet formation is essential to solving the puzzle. This brings us closer to understanding how not only Jupiter but the entire solar system took shape," Konstantin Batygin, professor of planetary science at Caltech new study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, focussed on Jupiter's tiny moons Amalthea and Thebe, which orbit even closer to Jupiter than Io, the smallest and nearest of the planet's four large Galilean team said that because Amalthea and Thebe have slightly tilted orbits, analysed these small orbital discrepancies to calculate Jupiter's original size. It was approximately twice its current radius, with a predicted volume that is the equivalent of over 2,000 that's not all, the researchers also determined that Jupiter's magnetic field at that time was approximately 50 times stronger than it is today. "It's astonishing that even after 4.5 billion years, enough clues remain to let us reconstruct Jupiter's physical state at the dawn of its existence," Fred C. Adams, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Michigan team focused on the orbital dynamics of Jupiter's moons and the conservation of the planet's angular momentum—quantities that are directly measurable. Their analysis establishes a clear snapshot of Jupiter at the moment the surrounding solar nebula results add crucial details to existing planet formation theories, which suggest that Jupiter and other giant planets around other stars formed via core accretion, a process by which a rocky and icy core rapidly gathers Watch
