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Artist’s conception of the star system HD 131399, with the planet HD 131399Ab in the foreground. Image Credit:ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser Over the past couple decades, astronomers have been discovering a seemingly endless variety of exoplanets orbiting other stars. Some are rather similar to planets in our own Solar System, while others are more […] 
Artist’s illustration of the brights spots Occator crater and elsewhere, based on a detailed map of the surface compiled from images taken from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. New observations show that the bright spots change in brightness from day to night, suggesting that they change under the […] 
Image of “cauliflower” silica formations found by the Spirit rover in 2008 near Home Plate in Gusev crater. Do they hold clues to ancient life on Mars? Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Was there ever life on Mars? That is one of the longest-running and most debated questions in planetary science, and while there have […] 
The “Chemical Laptop” being designed by NASA to help search for evidence of alien life elsewhere in the Solar System. Photo Credit: NASA One of NASA’s primary objectives, and the one which most excites the general public, is the search for evidence of life elsewhere, whether in our own Solar System or on […] 
Artist’s conception of GJ 1132b, an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby star. Conditions on this world, however, are probably more like Venus than Earth. Image Credit: Dana Berry Astronomers have discovered another Earth-sized exoplanet that is the closest one to our own Solar System found so far, but it might not be a […] 
Discovery near-infrared image of the exoplanet 51 Eridani b taken by the Gemini Planet Imager on Dec. 21, 2014. The relative size of Saturn’s orbit is also shown for comparison. Image Credit: Gemini Observatory/J. Rameau (UdeM)/C. Marois (NRC Herzberg) The Gemini Planet Imager, a new telescopic instrument designed to find, image, and study […] View from the Spirit rover looking toward Husband Hill on the right, with the lighter-toned Home Plate rock outcrop below that. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The Spirit rover may have finished its journey a long time ago, but there is still plenty of data to go through and analyze, and continued study of that […] Artist’s conception of an ice giant type exoplanet. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI) Many different kinds of exoplanets have been found by astronomers, from giant “hot Jupiters” and “super Earths” to smaller rocky worlds like Earth or Mars. Now, another type has been discovered, an “ice giant” similar to Uranus or Neptune in […] Artist’s conception of the asteroid Chariklo with its ring system. Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org) When it comes to planetary rings, what do you think of? Saturn is the first obvious thing that comes to mind, with its famous majestic ring system surrounding the gas giant planet. The other gas and […] Artist’s conception of one of the newly-found planets in the Messier 67 star cluster. Image Credit: ESO Three more exoplanets have just been found, adding to a long and rapidly growing list, but their location makes them a bit more unique – they orbit three different stars in a star cluster rather than […] |
 Next Launch NROL-101 on a Atlas V 531 rocket from Cape Canaveral AFB, FL scheduled for: 3 Nov 20 at 22:58 GMT 3 Nov 20 at 5:58pm Eastern 
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