A long-ago reshuffling of the giant planets in our solar system may have been instrumental in giving Earth its moon. For decades, planetary scientists have hypothesized that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were born much closer to the sun and that gravitational interactions among those planets jolted them into their contemporary trajectories (SN: 5/10/22). But […]
Here’s another strike against Venus having copious lightning
Venus has long been depicted as having a hellish atmosphere. Despite that reputation, evidence increasingly suggests that our neighbor’s cloudy shroud isn’t riddled with lightning. Last month, planetary scientists proposed that most if not all of the bright flashes observed in Venus’ atmosphere could be explained by meteors (SN: 9/11/23). Now, a separate team suggests […]
In a first, astronomers spot the afterglow of an exoplanet collision
In a solar system about 1,800 light-years from Earth, two planets smacked into one another in an impact that vaporized them both. And astronomers caught them in the act. An incandescent blob of leftover planet, lingering after an impact, could explain a surge of infrared light from a remote star, researchers report October 11 in […]
How drones are helping scientists find meteorites
Meteorites offer tantalizing clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from rocket science. Often, researchers simply fan out across a landscape and walk for hours while staring at the ground. Now, some scientists are turning to drones and machine learning to help spot freshly fallen meteorites much more […]
Flashes in Venus’ atmosphere might be meteors, not lightning
Occasional flashes light up Venus’ shroud of clouds. Previous analyses have hinted that the bursts of light could be lightning in the hellish world’s atmosphere. But a new study suggests most of the flashes may be nothing more than the brief yet brilliant blazes of meteors. With upcoming missions planned for Venus, scientists are eager […]
NASA’s DART mission lofted a swarm of boulders into space
When a probe smashed into a small asteroid last year, the collision did more than change the asteroid’s orbit — it blasted a few dozen hefty boulders into space too. Last September, NASA steered the DART spacecraft into Dimorphos, a moonlet of the larger asteroid Didymos, to test a strategy for knocking any future Earth-bound […]
Granite likely lurks beneath the moon’s surface
Watch out Yosemite — the moon has its own impressive rock display. An enormous chunk of granite, measuring roughly 50 kilometers wide, may be buried beneath the lunar surface, researchers reported July 5 in Nature. Finding such a behemoth, by far the largest granite structure spotted beyond Earth, is a surprise given that forming this […]
A rain of electrons causes Mercury’s X-ray auroras
Mercury’s auroras are perfectly in character. While temperate Earth gets heavenly light shows over its poles, hellish Mercury gets invisible ribbons of X-ray radiation that cling to its sun-blasted surface. But as alien as they may appear, Mercury’s X-ray auroras have a lot in common with Earth’s polar lights, and with auroras throughout the solar […]
Jupiter’s lightning bolts contort the same way as Earth’s
On Jupiter, lightning jerks and jolts a lot like it does on Earth. Jovian lightning emits radio wave pulses that are typically separated by about one millisecond, researchers report May 23 in Nature Communications. The energetic prestissimo, the scientists say, is a sign that the gas giant’s lightning propagates in pulses, at a pace comparable […]