It’s been a great start to 2020 as astronomers have already discovered something new about Venus. However, there is so much happening with Venus that it would be sad not to tell the world about it. Let’s jump into 5 things astronomers recently learned about Venus that really surprised them. Upper Clouds on Venus Are Vastly Different Than Originally Thought “Akatsuki’s LIR camera spotted an enormous stationary wave running completely across the globe from north to south on Venus. The camera sees heat emanating from Venus’ uppermost clouds, day or night.” Planetary Society Credit: JAXA The clouds on Venus are fascinating. They float in the troposphere between altitudes of 47 and 70 kilometres (or 29 and 43 miles) and are divided into lower, middle, and upper layers. Upper layers are interesting because when the Sun sends its solar energy these clouds absorb them!...

There are many missions and discoveries that have truly reshaped the way we think about the planets, stars, solar system and beyond. However, the Cassini-Huygens mission is arguably one of the most important missions for humankind. A moon that truly opened our eyes is Titan. It’s Saturn’s largest moon and the only moon in our solar system to have a dense atmosphere. Many people are familiar with our missions to the Moon or Mars but not everyone is familiar with the mission to Titan. We’ll take a look at the story of getting to Titan and its challenges as well as what we were expecting vs. what was found when we took a closer look at Titan.   Finding a Way to Get to Titan Together Getting to Titan wasn’t going to be easy and NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) were already thinking about how to accomplish this in 1982. Remember, Saturn is about 10 AU or...

Imagine a moon where your typical view is the gargantuan planet Jupiter. It never seems to move across the sky and just stares right back at you. This is probably a typical view from most of the moons around Jupiter but there is one that separates itself from the rest; enter Callisto. Quick Facts About Callisto Discovered in 1610 by Galileo 16 Earth day orbital & rotation periods (synchronous) Average radius: 2,410 km (Earth’s moon = 1,737 km) Callisto is a very intriguing planet when you start getting a closer look at it. Its cratered filled surface tells a story of ancient turmoil since the early solar system. We know that its other comparable siblings – Io, Europa, and Ganymede – experiences tidal heating as a result of orbital resonance. Meaning the enormous effect of a tug of war between Jupiter’s gravity and these moons causes some internal heating....

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution or the MAVEN mission discovered some incredible new pieces of information about Mars. These findings revealed that the Sun, in its devilish way, destroyed the atmosphere of Mars. Stripping away a heavenly environment where water flowed and life could thrive in. Furthermore, NASA learned that the once-thick atmosphere of Mars was blown away by the Sun’s solar winds between 4.2 billion and 3.7 billion years ago.   What’s terrifying is that Mars only retained 1% of its atmosphere as a result. Not only that but the rate at which Mars was losing its atmosphere: one quarter pound of atoms per second! That is the mass of a cheeseburger being stripped away by the solar winds every second. A tasty but frightening image. What about our very own Earth? Don’t we get hit by solar winds too? Well our Earth is shielded by such harmful...

Saturn and Jupiter are one of the largest gaseous planets in our solar system that hold a plethora of excitement and mystery. One of the mysteries is how these planets actually formed. You may be thinking to yourself, “Is that really a big mystery to us?” And the answer is yes. Let me tell you why.     The mystery starts with the widely accepted theory called core accretion model. This model states that a planet-sized core of rock and ice form first. Following that, an inflow of interstellar gas and dust latch on to the growing planet. At this part of the model is where it gets a little dicey, because you see the very first step of this process doesn’t match up with the following: Accumulating a massive atmosphere requires a solid core of 10x that of Earth. However, these objects must form in a few million years. Why does that matter? It matters because the...

In the last decade Pluto has gone through a lot of controversy around whether it’s a planet or not. However, controversy aside there are some really cool discoveries happening in the just the last month or so. We’re going to take a look at my favorite 5 things about Pluto that you may not know about. Please let me know in the comments below of a Pluto fact that you really found interesting or fascinating.   1. Pluto’s color was not what we expected Pluto’s color is a lot different than some of us had imagined. I thought it might have been blue because it’s considered an icy dwarf planet. However, that is actually not the case at all here. First off Pluto has two contrasting colors – beige / dark orange and to me what looks like a grey or grey with a tinge of blue. Actually, the internet had represented Pluto in either red or blue. So I’d...