‘Planets’ Articles at NetMassimo Blog, Page 11

Artistic impression of the dwarf planet Makemake surface (Image ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger)

New discoveries on the dwarf planet Makemake

Massimo Luciani November 25, 2012 0

A number of ESO’s telescopes at La Silla and Paranal, Chile, were used to observe the dwarf planet Makemake. Mainly, these are the Very Large Telescope (VLT), New Technology Telescope (NTT) and TRAPPIST (transiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) telescopes. The data obtained with other smaller telescopes in South America such as the one in Cerro Armazones, the place where the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will be built, were combined with the main ones to obtain the maximum amount of information.

Diagram of the thermal tides on Mars (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ashima Research/SWRI)

The Mars Rover Curiosity is gathering data about the weather and radiations on Mars

Massimo Luciani November 16, 2012 0

One of the many tasks of the Mars Rover Curiosity is to study the weather and the levels of radiation on Mars. In particular, it’s collecting data on winds and changes in the levels of natural radiation in Gale Crater, where it’s currently working.

A small area on Mars seen on the left with its real colors and on the right with its colors adjusted to see how it would look on the Earth (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

The Mars Rover Curiosity has found on Mars a place where the soil looks like the Hawaii

Massimo Luciani November 2, 2012 1

The Mars Rover Curiosity has completed some analyzes of Martian soil using the instrument called Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin). It turned out that the soil is similar to the basaltic one of volcanic origin of the Hawaii islands on the Earth.

The effects of an immense storm on Saturn

Massimo Luciani October 26, 2012 1

The Cassini space probe has detected the consequences of an immense storm on Saturn almost two years after it had been spotted. Cassini discovered this rare storm in the northern hemisphere of the planet on December 5, 2010 and the observation went on for several months. In time, its visible signs disappeared but the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS), one of the spacecraft’s instruments, showed that there are still effects from the storm.

The planet 55 Cancri e might contain a diamond three times the size of the Earth

Massimo Luciani October 20, 2012 3

Yale University’s researcher Nikku Madhusudhan thinks that the main elements that compose the planet 55 Cancri e are carbon, iron and silicon. The most important part is that according to this new theory carbon is present in the form of graphite and diamond estimating that the equivalent of about three Earth masses could be in the form of diamond.