Tag Archives: Solar System

For planets, one thing leads to another

Posted on August 7, 2014 by VM

One of the biggest benefits of being a journalist is that you become aware of interesting things from various fields. As a science journalist, the ambit is narrowed but the interestingness, not at all. And one of the most interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged exoplanets, Keplerian disk, Kuiper Belt, log-log plot, planet formation, Solar System | Leave a comment

A thicker crust on Vesta questions how it was baked

Posted on July 18, 2014 by VM

Billing its mission as a journey to the beginning of the Solar System, the NASA Dawn probe has revealed more information about the asteroid Vesta that has scientists both eager and cautious about what they have learned. The second largest … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 4 Vesta, asteroids, Ceres, chondrites, NASA Dawn, olivine, planet formation, Solar System | Leave a comment

Studying our primal horizons at the Kuiper belt

Posted on June 20, 2014 by VM

In August this year, the New Horizons spacecraft will cross into the region of space beyond Neptune’s orbit. It won’t be the first human object to go this far: the two Voyager space probes have already done that, and then Pioneer … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Grand Tack Model, Kuiper Belt, New Horizons, Nice Model, Pioneer 10, planetary migration, Solar System, Trans-Neptunian objects, Voyager space probes | Leave a comment

Rocky exoplanets only get so big before they get gassy

Posted on May 28, 2014 by VM

By the time the NASA Kepler mission failed in 2013, it had gathered evidence that there were at least 962 exoplanets in 76 stellar systems, not to mention the final word is awaited on 2,900 more. In the four years it … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Astronomy, density, empirical relationship, exobiology, exoplanets, mass, NASA Kepler mission, planet formation, Solar System | Leave a comment

The secrets of how planets form

Posted on May 5, 2014 by VM

Astronomers who were measuring the length of one day on an exoplanet for the first time were in for a surprise: it was shorter than any planet’s in the Solar System. Beta Pictoris b, orbiting the star Beta Pictoris, has … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrophysics, Beta Pictoris b, centrifugal force, curve plotting, escape velocity, exoplanets, gravitation, Kuiper Belt, monomial, neutron stars, non-linearity, planet formation, Solar System, spin-mass correlation, strong nuclear force | Leave a comment

O Voyager, where art thou?

Posted on June 29, 2013 by VM

On September 5, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 space probe to study the Jovian planets Jupiter and Saturn, and their moons, and the interstellar medium, the gigantic chasm between various star-systems in the universe. It’s been 35 years and 9 months, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cosmic rays, heliosheath, heliosphere, Low-Energy Charged Particle experiment, Milky Way, Solar System, Stamatios Krimigis, Voyager 1 | Leave a comment

Posted on June 28, 2013 by VM

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrophysics, cosmic rays, interstellar medium, Milky Way Galaxy, Solar System, Voyager 1 | Leave a comment