Planet Formation is (Still) Not Well Understood
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Release Date: 03/29/2024
Found: 1 Intermediate Mass Black Hole
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including how Jupiter's Great Red Spot went missing, Io's Lava Lake, Titan's coastal erosion, and this week's tales from the launch pad. We also take a close look at the discovery of the first intermediate-mass black hole in the Omega Centauri globular cluster
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JWST Reveals Star Formation Details
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Let's take a fast-paced journey thru all that's new in space and astronomy, including Mars Perseverance Rover fords an ancient river, black holes sometimes form like baby stars, and this week's tales from the launch pad. We also look in detail at how JWST images reveal star formation in never-before-seen details.
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Planning to go back to the moon
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Let's take a quick tour of the latest news, including updates on the Hubble Space Telescopes and single gyro operations, EUCLID's image release, an amazing new image of Io by LBT, and new calculations of Pluto's oceans. We also look in detail at plans to return humans to the moon using Starship by SpaceX and Blue Moon by Blue Origin.
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Climate in Crisis (and stars in formation)
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
In this episode, we bring you stories on how JWST - Not LIGO and Virgo - spotted the most distant Black Hole merge to date, why the search for life on other worlds gets more challenging the more we look, and we take a deep dive into the things we’re doing that cause and relieve climate change.
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Carrington 2024
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at Sunspot complex 3664 and the beautiful chaos that it’s been creating. And because we’re in a planetary science kind of mood, we’re also looking at stories related to observing weather on alien worlds, the history of Mars Climate, and even how solar storms might affect that particular Red Planet.
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Io and Juno Begin to Part Ways
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
In February, on the closest approach, NASA's Juno spacecraft was within 930 miles of the closest moon Io’s surface. Since then, Juno’s orbit has been shrinking, bringing the mission closer to Jupiter and away from the circling Galilean moons. Io and Juno have parted ways, and Juno is now snuggling down into tighter orbits around her Jupiter.
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Catch the (Alien) Rainbow
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
As scientists discover and explore the atmospheres of more and more planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, we are learning that if you can imagine it, it probably exists. In a new paper discussing the planet WASP-76b, researchers describe what appears to be a giant rainbow in the atmosphere of another world... a circular rainbow... and it's not caused by refracted starlight!
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Following the Water Toward Climate Change
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
This week’s episode is brought to you by last week’s terrible weather. While experiencing hail and thunder IRL, we also saw press release after press release and article after article discussing climate change. This one-two punch of new science and the need for a new roof means we will touch on climate change in our closer look this week. We apologize in advance; it’s not pretty out there -- unless you like storm chasing, then it’s kind of the stuff of dreams at the moment.
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Planet Formation is (Still) Not Well Understood
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
One of our recurring topics is “Planet formation is not well understood,” and a trio of new papers is making it clear why planet formation continues to... not be well understood. Put simply: the universe likes to create more diverse solar systems than an entire planet’s worth of sci-fi writers can imagine.
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SPECIAL SHORT: How NASA Budget Cuts Will Hurt Space Science
EVSN: Escape Velocity Space News
Earlier in March, Congress voted into place the FY2024 budgets for multiple agencies, including NASA. The agency is being asked for an overall 2% cut. Combined with inflation rates over 3%, we are looking at a fairly significant cut to the U.S. budget for space science. Dr. Pamela Gay breaks down what these cuts will affect, including people and missions, as we move forward with this already stressful fiscal year. (This episode was recorded on March 14, 2024)
info_outlineOne of our recurring topics is “Planet formation is not well understood,” and a trio of new papers is making it clear why planet formation continues to... not be well understood. Put simply: the universe likes to create more diverse solar systems than an entire planet’s worth of sci-fi writers can imagine.