August 2016

Some mineral veins in Gale Crater (Photo NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

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An article published in the journal “Meteoritics & Planetary Science” describes a research on the ancient lake that existed in today’s Gale Crater on Mars. Scientists at the Open University and the University of Leicester used data collected by NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity to understand the old conditions in Gale Crater concluding that the environment was similar to the Earth and in favor of the presence of life forms.

Artistic representation of Ceres' possible internal layers (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a research about the internal structure of the dwarf planet Ceres. A team led by Ryan Park of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) analyzed very precisely the movements of the Dawn space probe, which is orbiting Ceres, to get clues that suggest that it’s composed of a number of layers with the densest in its core and some weak layers that include ice water.

Artistic representation of Io with its volcanoes and the atmosphere collapsing when it enters Jupiter's shadow (Image SwRI/Andrew Blanchard)

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An article published in the “Journal of Geophysical Research” describes a research funded by NASA on the atmosphere of Io, one of the “Galilean” moons of Jupiter. A group of scientists led by Constantine Tsang of the Southwest Research Institute detected the changes taking place in the atmosphere of Io, noting how it collapses when it enters Jupiter’s shadow and the temperature drops.

DEM L316A seen by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image ESA/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu)

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A photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the remains of a star that died long ago. Those are wisps of ionized gas that still emit a faint glow, the last product of the immense energy generated in a Type Ia supernova. These supernova remnants called DEM L316A are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, about 160,000 light-years away from Earth.