2016

Utopia Planitia (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

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An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes the discovery of a kind of subterranean lake in Utopia Planitia on Mars. A team of researchers led by Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin, used the data gathered by the SHARAD instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) space probe to examine the subsoil of this basin located in the red planet’s northern hemisphere.

Perspective view of the area near Rembrandt basin compared to a photo (Image NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/DLR/Smithsonian Institution.)

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An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes the discovery of a great valley on the planet Mercury. A team of scientists led by Thomas R. Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. used topographic maps created thanks to NASA’s MESSENGER space probe to discover it. It’s considered evidence of the planet’s contraction.

Dry ice detected with its spectral data and indication of the area (Image Data: ESA/Rosetta/VIRTIS/INAF-IAPS/OBS DE PARIS-LESIA/DLR; Reprinted with permission from G. Filacchione et al., Science 10.1126/science.aag3161 (2016); context image: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0)

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Two articles published in the journal “Science” describe the discovery of dry ice, meaning frozen carbon dioxide, on the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A team of researchers led by Gianrico Filacchione of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics and another led by Sonia Fornasier the French LESIA-Observatoire de Paris and Université Paris Diderot used the observations conducted with the VIRTIS spectrometer aboard ESA’s Rosetta space probe to find for the first time dry ice on a comet’s nucleus.

The return capsule of the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft (Photo courtesy Xinhua/Li Gang)

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In China was early afternoon when the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia. The two crew members, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, were assisted by ground staff and are in good physical condition. Their mission began on October 17 so it was the longest Chinese manned mission.