https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org Yale researchers may have solved a longstanding puzzle as to why certain metallic meteorites show traces of a magnetic field—a finding that may shed light on the formation of magnetic dynamos at the core of planets. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-collisions-asteroids-formation-metal-generate.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:29:08 EDT news610129740 Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. István Szapudi, an astronomer at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, has proposed a novel approach—a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a tethered, captured asteroid as a counterweight. Engineering studies using this approach could start now to create a workable design that could mitigate climate change within decades. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-sun-umbrella-tethered-asteroid-mitigate.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 16:01:03 EDT news610038062 An asteroid discovery algorithm—designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky—has identified its first "potentially hazardous" asteroid, a term for space rocks in Earth's vicinity that scientists like to keep an eye on. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-algorithm-ensnares-potentially-hazardous-asteroid.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:19:08 EDT news610028339 As the next generation of giant, high-powered observatories begin to come online, a new study suggests that their instruments may offer scientists an unparalleled opportunity to discern what weather may be like on far-away exoplanets. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-cosmic-weather-worlds-life.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:17 EDT news609688513 Life around an ill-tempered red dwarf star is no fun for accompanying newborn planets. Call it a baptism of fire. Entangled magnetic fields cause a red dwarf to spit out "super-flares" that are 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares seen on our sun. That is coupled with blistering ultraviolet radiation requiring any of the star system's inhabitants to use "sunscreen 5,000." https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hubble-evaporating-planet-hiccups.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 13:28:48 EDT news609683323 By conducting radial velocity (RV) follow-up observations of the GJ 367 planetary system with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), an international team of astronomers has detected two additional alien worlds, at least four times as massive as the Earth. The finding was reported July 18 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-additional-exoplanets-nearby-planetary.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:10:01 EDT news609672853 The spinning, solar-powered spacecraft will take another look of the fiery Jovian moon on July 30. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-juno-closer-jupiter-moon.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:42:06 EDT news609608522 Infrared spectra of anhydrous grains from the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu indicate a connection between one of the reservoirs from which Ryugu's parent body originated and the reservoirs that formed comets and primitive asteroids in the outer protoplanetary disk. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-asteroid-ryugu-anhydrous-ingredients-afar.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 10:34:58 EDT news609586484 Eager scientists and a gleaming lab awaits. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-lab-life-blocks-asteroid.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 05:00:36 EDT news609566423 A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-image-reveals-secrets-planet-birth.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:00:01 EDT news609436437 Researchers from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London have spotted a "retired" asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star passing through a young star-forming region, something which was previously thought not to happen. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-older-evolved-stars-star-forming-region.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:05:03 EDT news609429901 Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the MPIA-led MINDS research collaboration discovered water in the inner region of a disk of gas and dust around the young star PDS 70. Astronomers expect terrestrial planets to be forming in that zone. This is the first detection of that kind in a disk that hosts at least two planets. Any rocky planets produced in the inner disk would benefit from a substantial local water reservoir, improving the chances of habitability later on. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-jwst-disk-young-star-giant.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news609147541 An international team of space scientists has found evidence that hydrogen peroxide on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, exists only on its higher latitudes. For their research, reported in the journal Science Advances, the group studied data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hydrogen-peroxide-jupiter-moon-ganymede.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:20:01 EDT news609412214 As a new space race heats up, two researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas and their colleagues have proposed a new scientific subfield: planetary geoarchaeology, the study of how cultural and natural processes on Earth's moon, on Mars and across the solar system may be altering, preserving or destroying the material record of space exploration. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-space-scientists-geoarchaeology-aid-heritage.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 12:58:21 EDT news609163097 Microparticle dust aggregates, which are thought to play a role in the formation of new planets, are less likely to stick together after a collision when the aggregates are larger. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-size-stickiness-cosmic-aggregates.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 10:46:03 EDT news609155161 A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth's sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core that promoted extended volcanism and resurfaced the planet. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-high-energy-impacts-fueled-venus.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:50:05 EDT news609086998 Wayward asteroids present a real collision hazard to Earth. Scientists estimate that an asteroid measuring several miles across smashed into Earth 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, among other forms of life, in a mass extinction. Unlike the dinosaurs, humanity can avoid this fate if we begin practicing how to knock an Earth-approaching asteroid off course. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hubble-boulders-asteroid-dimorphos.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 12:47:03 EDT news609076021 An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new "super-Earth" exoplanet with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The newfound alien world, designated TOI-1680 b, is about 50% larger than the Earth and orbits an M-dwarf star located some 120 light years away. The finding was detailed in a paper published July 11 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-super-earth-orbiting-m-dwarf-star.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 09:20:01 EDT news609062291 New research by scientists from NASA and Japan's Osaka University suggests that rogue planets—worlds that drift through space untethered to a star—far outnumber planets that orbit stars. The results imply that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch by May 2027, could find a staggering 400 Earth-mass rogue worlds. Indeed, this new study has already identified one such candidate. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-reveals-nasa-roman-earth-mass-rogue.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:58:27 EDT news608990142 Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have found the possible "sibling" of a planet orbiting a distant star. The team has detected a cloud of debris that might be sharing this planet's orbit, which they believe could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. If confirmed, this discovery would be the strongest evidence yet that two exoplanets can share one orbit. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-exoplanet-sibling-orbit.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jul 2023 08:00:02 EDT news608911168 BepiColombo, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission, has revealed how electrons raining down onto the surface of Mercury can trigger high-energy auroras. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-bepicolombo-flyby-mercury-electron-triggers.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Tue, 18 Jul 2023 12:09:02 EDT news608900941 Astronomers have found evidence that some stars boast unexpectedly strong surface magnetic fields, a discovery that challenges current models of how they evolve. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-evidence-unusual-stellar-evolution.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Jul 2023 15:58:03 EDT news608828281 A team led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has found that NASA's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter frequently encounters giant swirling waves at the boundary between the solar wind and Jupiter's magnetosphere. The waves are an important process for transferring energy and mass from the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, to planetary space environments. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-team-giant-swirling-edge-jupiter.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Jul 2023 14:41:03 EDT news608823661 A large international team of space scientists and geochemists has found preserved presolar silicate grains in surface samples collected from the Ryugu asteroid by the Japanese space probe Hayabusa2 in 2018 and 2019 and returned to Earth in 2020. In their study, reported in the journal Science Advances, the group found two clasts (unique and identifiable fragments of rock) in Ryugu samples. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-presolar-silicate-grains-ryugu-samples.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Jul 2023 12:00:53 EDT news608814045 The surface of the moon tells the story of the inner solar system. Every meteorite that hits leaves its mark, and together those craters hold a record of the events that have occurred on and around the moon over the past 4 billion years. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-decrypting-lunar-craters-quickly-easily.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 14 Jul 2023 13:34:03 EDT news608560441 A new study featuring data from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover reports on an instrumental detection potentially consistent with organic molecules on the Martian surface, hinting toward past habitability of the Red Planet. The research, led by a team of scientists that includes UF astrobiologist Amy Williams, was recently published in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-reveals-evidence-diverse-material-mars.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Thu, 13 Jul 2023 13:25:04 EDT news608473501 With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the study of exoplanetary atmospheres and their potential habitability reached new heights. A team of researchers led by Dr. Assaf Hochman from the Institute of Earth Sciences at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Thaddeus D. Komacek from The University of Maryland, College Park, and Paolo De Luca from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, delved into the effects of greenhouse gas supplements on temperate terrestrial exoplanets and Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-greenhouse-gas-supplement-circulation-patterns.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 13 Jul 2023 09:44:03 EDT news608460242 By analyzing the data from various ground-based facilities and space telescopes, European astronomers have investigated the nature of a peculiar object known as PM 1-322. As a result, they found evidence indicating that PM 1-322 is a variable planetary nebula. The finding was reported July 3 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-pm-variable-planetary-nebula.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 13 Jul 2023 08:47:12 EDT news608456828 A new analysis shows that there are probably many more Earth-like exoplanets with liquid water than had been thought, significantly increasing the chance of finding life. The work finds that even where the conditions are not ideal for liquid water to exist at the surface of a planet, many stars will harbor geological conditions suitable for liquid water under the planet's surface. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-probability-worlds-fold.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:00:25 EDT news608198158 The origin of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is mysterious in many ways. It has a metallic core, like Earth, but its core makes up a much larger fraction of its volume—85% compared to 15% for Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-scientists-nasa-messenger-mission-chromium.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 10 Jul 2023 17:05:14 EDT news608227499