GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — If you’re up before sunrise this week, you’ll be treated to a view of a “parade of planets.” The moon will move past Jupiter and Mars, then Saturn and finally, Mercury.
For best viewing, you’ll want to head outside 1 hour to 1.5 hours before sunrise and look to the east-southeast.
Early Tuesday morning, the waning crescent moon will be visible with the four planets down and to the left. As the sky begins to brighten, Mercury will rise and both Saturn and Mars will begin to fade from view. Both the Moon and Jupiter will remain visible as it gets lighter.
Many things are taking place:
Is 'Planet 9' Next? Staggering Haul Of 139 Minor Planets Found In Outer Solar System
Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard ... [+] NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015, when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. (Photo by NASA/APL/SwRI via Getty Images)
Also referred to as "transneptunian" objects, a TNO is a minor planet or dwarf planet that orbits the sun from beyond Neptune. That means over 30 astronomical units (au), a single au being the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Pluto is a TNO. In fact, it's the original and the largest alongside Eris, with Haumea, Makemake and Gonggong close behind in terms of size.
Share your moon and planets photos with EarthSky | Today's Image | EarthSky
The image above is from this morning (March 18). Jupiter is the bright starlike object on the left, Mars is to the right of Jupiter, and the moon is below. You’ll find these objects in the eastern predawn sky this week . Note that the moon is over-exposed in this photo to bring Mars into easier view; the moon is really a waning crescent . This photo is from Tom and Jane Wildoner’s Dark Side Observatory. Read more from Tom about how he captured it .
Enjoying the sky is something we all can do from a social distance. Share your photos at EarthSky Community Photos ( submit here ), or at EarthSky Facebook . This week, we’re focused on the moon passing four planets before sunup. Grab your camera, and aim east each morning this week, before the sky lightens. A few selected photos here. We’ll be adding more as the week progresses. Thank you if you’ve already posted!
Planetary defense against asteroids joins NASA's menu for next decadal survey focus | Space
Planetary scientists and astrobiologists are gearing up for a major survey process that will dictate NASA's priorities throughout the 2020s.
The decadal survey process gathers consensus from a broad swath of scientists in the relevant fields in order to guide NASA's long-term priority setting. The new Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal will cover the years 2023 to 2032. This cycle of the decadal survey is just beginning; the most recent step was to agree on the so-called "statement of task," which guides the committee that surveys scientists and writes the final document.
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Hot gas-giant planet appears to have iron rain | Ars Technica
The first exoplanets discovered tended to be gas giants orbiting close to their stars. That's because these are easy to find. Their large size and proximity to the star increase the signal caused by either their gravitational influence on the star or through the amount of starlight obscured by the planet. Over time, however, our ability to image exoplanets has given us a more complete picture of the full catalog of planets outside our Solar System.
As interest in exoplanets has shifted to their atmospheres , however, attention has shifted back to hot gas giants for similar reasons: their atmospheres are large, and therefore the signals they produce are correspondingly large. Now, researchers are reporting details of the atmosphere of a very hot exoplanet with a feature that sounds like something out of science fiction: a rain of liquid iron falling through the night atmosphere.
Asteroid Ryugu likely link in planetary formation
In autumn 2018, the scientists working with first author Tatsuaki Okada of the Japanese space agency JAXA analyzed the asteroid's surface temperature in several series of measurements performed with the Thermal Infrared Imager (TIR) on board Hayabusa2. These measurements were made in the 8 to 12 micrometer wavelength range during day and night cycles. In the process, they discovered that, with very few exceptions, the surface heats up very quickly when exposed to sunlight.
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The fragile porous structure of C-type asteroids might be similar to that of planetesimals, which formed in the primordial solar nebula and accreted during numerous collisions to form planets. Most of the collapsing mass of the pre-solar cloud of gas and dust accumulated in the young sun. When a critical mass was reached, the heat-generating process of nuclear fusion began in its core.
Earth's mantle, not its core, may have generated planet's early magnetic field -- ScienceDaily
New research lends credence to an unorthodox retelling of the story of early Earth first proposed by a geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
In a study appearing March 15 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters , Scripps Oceanography researchers Dave Stegman, Leah Ziegler, and Nicolas Blanc provide new estimates for the thermodynamics of magnetic field generation within the liquid portion of the early Earth's mantle and show how long that field was available.
Iron rain falls on alien planet 640 light-years away - Axios
A telescope in Chile has found a world 640 light-years from Earth that rains liquid iron, adding to the strange tapestry of planets far from our own.
Details: The world, named WASP-76b, is tidally locked to its star, like the Moon is to Earth. The planet's day side gets so hot that iron evaporates into its atmosphere.
The big picture: WASP-76b is only one of the many weird exoplanets — planets circling other stars — that are fascinating scientists today.
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5 jobs we've had: 1. polishing shoes 2. shining brass aboard ship 3. standing with our friends after 9/11 4. w… https://t.co/VDPDbzJk2n CAFinUS (from 🇺🇸) Wed Mar 18 01:23:46 +0000 2020
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