Simulations fail to fully explain the inclination of Uranus – News of February 3, 2019 – The axis of rotation of Uranus is quite unique in the solar system. This is most likely the result of a collision very early in the planet’s history, or several collisions. But it is
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A mission to Neptune could be launched in the early 2030s to better know it – News of January 31, 2019 – We still do not know much about Neptune, which has been flown only once The Voyager 2 space probe approached Neptune and Uranus in the late 1980s. While
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The mystery persists about the origin of the Martian flows – News of January 29, 2019 – At the end of the 1970s, the Viking program’s orbiters spotted for the first time dark tracks evoking flows on the surface of Mars. Since then, these flows have been observed many times
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The solar system could contain 200 dwarf planets – News of January 27, 2019 – The differentiation between planets and dwarf planets is very recent. Until the mid-2000s, schoolchildren learned that Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system. This changed with the discovery of many Pluto-like bodies in
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Rain would fall on Titan, a Saturn’s moon – News of January 22, 2019 – It can take years to process the data collected by a space probe. The Cassini space probe completed its mission in September 2017. It was then burnt in Saturn’s atmosphere. One of the missions of
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Io would have more than 400 active volcanoes on its surface – News of January 7, 2019 – Currently in orbit around Jupiter, the Juno space probe took a picture of Io, which highlights a volcanic plume on this moon of Jupiter. This photo reminds how Io is a unique
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The dwarf planet Ceres could shelter life Ceres is a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter and its density is relatively low. We assumed that Ceres was relatively rich in water, and the space probe Dawn confirmed it during its flights over Ceres from 2015, with its spectrometers. The
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6% of meteorites on Earth would come from Vesta In the early 2010s, the data collected by the three scientific instruments embarked on the Dawn space probe revealed the complexity of Vesta, a celestial body that could be classified between an asteroid and a planet. Like a planet, the structure
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Water ice detected on the Moon – News of September 4, 2018 – Almost all space agencies have decided to make the Moon a priority for human exploration. A study published this summer by a team of US researchers may increase this interest. Since the 1960s, the Moon has been
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Astronomers discover 12 new moons in orbit of Jupiter – News of July 24, 2018 – We may think that if we try to discover planets in other systems, it is because we found all that there was to find in the solar system. However, it is a misconception :
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Mercury would house more water than expected – News of September 26, 2017 – When we think of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, we imagine a dry and desolate hell. The surprise was great when, in 2012, the Messenger space probe detected ice water at the pole of
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