Astro Blog

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/a-unified-atmospheric-model-for-uranus-and-neptune By  Morgan Rehnberg , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt:  In a new model, three substantial atmospheric layers appear consistent between the ice giants.  The ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, are the least understood planets in the solar system. They remain the only worlds that an orbital spacecraft has not visited. Our limited understanding of them derives largely from the flyby of NASA’s  Voyager 2  probe and subsequent observations with the  Hubble Space Telescope . Yet the ice giants may be most representative of the extrasolar planets in our local vicinity. Why these planets appear so different in color despite having very similar physical properties, including vertical temperature profile and atmospheric composition, is a mystery. Past investigations have attributed Neptune’s deeper blue largely to excess absorption in the red and near infrared from atmospheric methane. ... Irwi...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/missing-mass-planet-formation-found-young-disks-gas-and-dust Source:   By Adam Mann, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Planets are forming around young stars far faster than scientists expected, arising in a cosmic eye blink of less than half a million years, according to a new study. ...Planets coalesce from massive disks of gas and dust that surround newborn stars. But detecting these embryonic worlds is difficult because both the star and the disk shine far brighter than any tiny planet. To find out how much material is available for planet formation, researchers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to weigh the disks around young stars between 1 million and 3 million years old. Past studies found that some lacked the mass to form even a single Jupiter-size world. The results suggested astronomers were either overlooking some hidden reservoir of material or they were looking too late in the planet-for...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613060/theres-probably-another-planet-in-our-solar-system/ Source:   By MIT Technology Review. Excerpt: When it comes to exploring the solar system, astronomers have an embarrassing secret. Despite 400 years of stargazing, they have discovered only two large objects that would have been unknown to the ancients: Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846. That’s not for lack of trying. The possibility of an unknown planet just beyond observational reach has attracted astronomers like moths to a flame. A few have been successful. Several astronomers together discovered Neptune after noticing that the other planets were being gravitationally nudged by an unknown mass. Neptune didn’t entirely resolve these discrepancies, and the hunt continued into the 20th century, culminating in Pluto’s discovery in 1930. But Pluto turned out to be so small that it couldn’t account for the nudging. Indeed, it was later humiliatingly demoted to a “dwarf planet.” ... ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/05/07/yes-pluto-is-a-planet/ Source:   David Grinspoon and Alan Stern, The Washington Post. Excerpt: Three years ago, NASA’s New Horizons, the fastest spaceship ever launched, raced past Pluto, spectacularly revealing the wonders of that newly seen world. This coming New Year’s Eve — if all goes well on board this small robot operating extremely far from home — it will treat us to images of the most distant body ever explored, provisionally named Ultima Thule. We know very little about it, but we do know it’s not a planet. Pluto, by contrast — despite what you’ve heard — is. Why do we say this? ...We use “planet” to describe worlds with certain qualities. When we see one like Pluto, with its many familiar features — mountains of ice, glaciers of nitrogen, a blue sky with layers of smog — we and our colleagues quite naturally find ourselves using the word “planet” to describe it and compare it to other planets that ...

Source:   By Ian Sample, The Guardian. Excerpt: Astronomers investigating the odd alignment of rocks beyond Pluto have concluded that an undetected icy planet four times the size of Earth must exist. ...If the researchers have their sums right, the mysterious new world is 10 times more massive than Earth and up to four times the size. Nicknamed Planet Nine, it moves on an extremely elongated orbit, and takes a staggering 10,000 to 20,000 years to swing once around the sun. ...Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) calculate that the closest it comes to the sun is 15 times the distance to Pluto. It then heads into uncharted territory, 75 times further out than Pluto, or about 93 billion miles from the sun. A ray of light would take a week to get there. ...Chris Lintott... said ...“One very interesting thing is that the planet is predicted to be between Earth and Neptune in mass. We see lots of planets this size in our surveys of planets elsewhere in the g...

Source:   NASA Excerpt: Our solar system is a family of planets, dwarf planets, comets, and asteroids orbiting our Sun, which share many common features, but each have unique personality traits. ...The top wind speeds on the gas giant planets are hundreds of meters per second--faster than many speeding bullets. See several models of the solar system  [link: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/yss/display.cfm?Year=2010&Month=12&Tab=Featured%20Activity ] solarsystem.nasa.gov/yss/display.cfm

Source:   Ron Hipschman, Exploratorium Calculate your age on another planet. Put it in as numbers: two digits for month and day and  4 for the year you were born and scroll down http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1qn2IT/www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/age/