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Lava-Covered Planets Are Defying a Key Rule of Planetary Science

Hot Lava World ExoplanetResearchers developed a model showing how lava-covered planets close to their stars can hold onto their atmospheres, which could help guide the search for life beyond our solar system. Some planets orbit so close to their stars that intense radiation should strip away their atmospheres. Yet several of these scorching, lava-covered worlds still retain thick [...]
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BepiColombo Begins Final Approach to Mercury

An artist’s impression of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft in cruise configuration, with Mercury in the background. On its 7.2 year journey to the innermost planet, BepiColombo will fly by Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury six times before entering into orbit. The MTM module is shown with ion thrusters firing, and with its solar wings extended, spanning about 100 feet (30 m) from tip-to-tip. The 24.6-foot (7.5 m) long solar array of the MPO orbiter in the middle is seen extending to the top. The Mio orbiter is hidden inside the sunshield in this orientation. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / NASA / JPL.

After nearly eight years and billions of kilometers of travel, BepiColombo -- a science mission led by ESA in close collaboration with JAXA -- has begun its long-awaited arrival at the smallest and innermost planet in our Solar System.

The post BepiColombo Begins Final Approach to Mercury appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Astronomers Discover Decagonal Wave circling Saturn’s South Pole

These Hubble images show Saturn and the gas giant’s southern pole with its 10-sided atmospheric wave. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Agustin SΓ‘nchez-Lavega, UPV / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Michael Wong, UC Berkeley / Alyssa Pagan.

For almost five decades, Saturn’s north pole has been famous for hosting a bizarre, six-sided jet stream known as the hexagon, a feature first spotted by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s and still churning today.

The post Astronomers Discover Decagonal Wave circling Saturn’s South Pole appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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