At a conference today
Posting will be intermittent, as I am attending a one day conference [pdf] at the University of Arizona being put on by Lunar & Planetary Laboratory.
Tidbits posted as I hear them (these tidbits do not involve new results that are still embargoed):
-Data from OSIRIS-REX at Bennu and Hayabua-2 at Ryugu have found that while both are rubble pile asteroids, there is evidence that suggests that Ryugu, but not Bennu, was subjected to heating in the past. In other words, it had been cooked.
-We presently possess no meteorites with a chemical make-up that matches the data obtained from orbit around Mercury. This isn’t a surprise, as any material thrown from the surface by an impact would not likely have the energy and velocity required to climb up out of the Sun’s gravitation well and get to Earth. Material from Mars however can easily fall into that well, which is why it is not difficult to find meteorites from Mars on Earth.
– Unlike the Earth, where atmospheric circulation in the north and south hemispheres is independent, Titan’s atmosphere is actually one large Hadley Cell, with flow going from one hemisphere to the other, depending on season.
-The evolutionary changes in Neptune’s orbit over time is thought to have caused the high inclination orbits seen in the objects in the Kuiper Belt, which are a mystery since all these objects must have once been confined within the protoplanetary disk, today’s plane of the solar system.
-Despite finding thousands of candidate exoplanets, Kepler found none in the habitable zone. This does not mean habitable exoplanets are rare, but that there were certain biases in Kepler’s observations that caused this lack.
-There is a lot of research going on to study buried ice/glaciers here on Earth. This work is directly aimed at better understanding the many buried glaciers now thought to exist on Mars.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Posting will be intermittent, as I am attending a one day conference [pdf] at the University of Arizona being put on by Lunar & Planetary Laboratory.
Tidbits posted as I hear them (these tidbits do not involve new results that are still embargoed):
-Data from OSIRIS-REX at Bennu and Hayabua-2 at Ryugu have found that while both are rubble pile asteroids, there is evidence that suggests that Ryugu, but not Bennu, was subjected to heating in the past. In other words, it had been cooked.
-We presently possess no meteorites with a chemical make-up that matches the data obtained from orbit around Mercury. This isn’t a surprise, as any material thrown from the surface by an impact would not likely have the energy and velocity required to climb up out of the Sun’s gravitation well and get to Earth. Material from Mars however can easily fall into that well, which is why it is not difficult to find meteorites from Mars on Earth.
– Unlike the Earth, where atmospheric circulation in the north and south hemispheres is independent, Titan’s atmosphere is actually one large Hadley Cell, with flow going from one hemisphere to the other, depending on season.
-The evolutionary changes in Neptune’s orbit over time is thought to have caused the high inclination orbits seen in the objects in the Kuiper Belt, which are a mystery since all these objects must have once been confined within the protoplanetary disk, today’s plane of the solar system.
-Despite finding thousands of candidate exoplanets, Kepler found none in the habitable zone. This does not mean habitable exoplanets are rare, but that there were certain biases in Kepler’s observations that caused this lack.
-There is a lot of research going on to study buried ice/glaciers here on Earth. This work is directly aimed at better understanding the many buried glaciers now thought to exist on Mars.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
If you run into a UofA astronomer named Andrew Tubbiolo, say ‘Hi’ for me. He knows me as “duheagle,” my Disqus ID.