Source: ESA
A rare martian delta in Eberswalde crater.
Image credits ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).
ESA’s Mars Express has spotted a rare case of a crater once filled by a lake, revealed by the presence of a delta. The delta found at Eberswalde crate is an ancient fan-shaped deposit of dark sediments, laid down in water. It is a reminder of Mars’ past, wetter climate. (read more)
Source: NASA Science News
Artist's concept of New Horizons arriving to a minor planet.
Image credit: NASA.
Dwarf planet Pluto is a world of mystery waiting to be visited for the first time. NASA's New Horizons probe is racing across the solar system for a close encounter that could dramatically alter what researchers "know" about Pluto and other small worlds.(read more)
Source: NASA Chandra
Spiral galaxy NGC 3393.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Fabbiano et al; Optical: NASA/STScI
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago. (read more)
Source: NASA Rovers
Opportunity at Work Examining 'Tisdale 2,'.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The initial work of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity at its new location on Mars shows surface compositional differences from anything the robot has studied in its first 7.5 years of exploration.
Opportunity arrived three weeks ago at the rim of a 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) crater named Endeavour. The first rock it examined is flat-topped and about the size of a footstool. It was apparently excavated by an impact that dug a crater the size of a tennis court into the crater's rim. The rock was informally named "Tisdale 2."(read more)
