It is always nice to get a bit of good news in what has been a pretty rubbish year. Well, totally rubbish to be precise. So, on Saturday it was a real treat to watch the live feed from JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, as the sample return capsule from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft blazed a trail in the skies above Australia.
Venus is often viewed as Earth’s sister planet, or perhaps more accurately its ugly sister. This familial comparison stems from their approximately equal mass and physical size. But compared to the relatively benign and hospitable surface conditions that prevail on Earth, Venus is the stuff of nightmares. The planet has a surface temperature of 464…
Let’s face it no one has a clue how Phobos formed. One theory says it’s a captured primitive asteroid. Well, it does look like one. Another theory claims it formed after a giant asteroid slammed into Mars. Really, it’s all very confusing. Anyway, JAXA is going to send a mission to clear up the mystery.…
It is now generally accepted that, from a geochemical perspective, our Solar System is lumpy. In fact it comes in two very distinct lumps. This was pointed out by Paul Warren in his 2011 paper. He showed that when various isotopes (e.g. 54Cr, 62Ni, 50Ti), measured in a wide range of extraterrestrial materials, are plotted…
Meteorites: The Blog from the Final Frontier 