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Showing posts with the label Planetary Observation

All You Need to Know About ESA's JUICE Mission

Over the past decades, Jupiter has also been one of the favourite planets that astronomers and space scientists are looking to investigate. The reasons for interest in Jupiter by astronomers and space scientists are many. Not only Jupiter will answer many questions related to the origin of the solar system and emergence of life, but the presence of water bodies on Jupiter’s three moons (‘Ganymede’, ‘Europa’ and ‘Callisto’) has also caught the eye of various space agencies and has built the enthusiasm in them to explore the Jupiter. Being one of the largest planets in our solar system and mostly made up of Helium and Hydrogen, it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky after Moon and Venus. Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer”, abbreviated as “Juice” is the spacecraft in the development phase to explore the Icy moons of Jupiter, and Jupiter itself. The “European Space Agency” has given the contract to “Airbus Defence and Space” company for its design. The spacecraft will be a...

Two Strange Glass Sphere Spotted on the Far Side of the Moon

China's Yutu 2 rover has made yet another curious discovery during its travels on the far side of the moon, this time turning up a pair of translucent glass globules. Xiao described the new finds as the "first discovery of macro-sized translucent glass globules on the moon." Finding these spheres on the moon suggests that impact events on the other planetary bodies could also form similar impact glasses, Xiao said. And on the moon, Xiao said that such glass spheres should be commonly produced by ancient impacts and could be valuable for understanding early lunar impact history.  Xiao and his team believe the small spheres, which are between 0.59 and 0.79 inches (1.5 to 2.5 centimeters) across, were probably formed by relatively recent meteor impacts. Specifically, the researchers believe that the globules formed from anorthosite, a volcanically-formed rock rich in the mineral feldspar, after a high-energy impact melted the rock and ref...