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Active Mercury
A NASA spacecraft gliding over the surface of Mercury has revealed that the planet's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and its geological past display greater levels of activity than scientists first suspected.
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Lunar GRAIL
GRAIL is a future NASA mission that will probe the moon's gravity field.
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Explore The Sky: Night & Day
In March, the celebration of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy continues with observing the sky by night and by day. Now is the perfect time to get outside and observe our celestial neighbors.
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The Kepler Telescope
The Kepler Telescope, set to launch no earlier than March 6, 2009, will be the very first mission capable of finding Earth-sized planets within our own galaxy.
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Tracking Global Climate Change: NASA's New Jason-2
Launched into Earth orbit June 20, 2008, OSTM/Jason-2 is producing information and maps that are already helping scientists to track and understand how and where our oceans are warming, and how our global climate may change.
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It's a Moon Thing
There is a shift in the way scientists are studying these outer planetary systems -- by targeting specifically their unique and mysterious moons.
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Magnetospheres: Plasma of the Solar System
We often hear about magnetic fields on Earth as well as surrounding other planets. Also known as magnetospheres, what exactly are they and how do they affect our universe?
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The Charged Particle Environment of Titan
Since planetary magnetospheres throughout the solar system are composed of highly charged ions and electrons, it is natural to be intrigued by the effects of that magnetosphere on the planet's satellites, such as those on Saturn's largest moon Titan.
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Taking Another Look at Europa
New research and enhanced remote sensing techniques are bringing scientists closer to being able to explore Europa's tantalizing ice-covered ocean and determine its potential for harboring life.
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Enceladus' Stressed out Tiger Stripes
Enceladus may contain enough interior friction to heat ice, creating huge geysers. That liquid water makes Enceladus a promising place to look for extraterrestrial life.
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The Enigma of Iapetus: "The Moon with a View"
The mysterious moon, with a walnut-shaped appearance due to its equatorial mountain ridge and brightness contrast have intrigued scientists for decades, and holds possible keys to the ancient chemical origins of the solar system.
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Life Under the Ice?
Move over, Mars. Jupiter's moon, Europa, may be the most promising site for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
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The Clues to What Lies Beneath
Considering that not a single instrument has landed on Europa, it's remarkable how much scientists have discovered about what lies under its icy surface.
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Noxious Lightning
Lightning is more than light and noise: It's an intense chemical factory that affects both local air quality and global climate.
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Saturn's Largest Sphere
The outer planets are much more than large gaseous planets. They are highly complex systems of interacting components. However, most would not recognize the largest, yet mostly invisible part of Saturn's system, its magnetosphere.
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Beware the Mars Hoax
Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter--but not as close as some people think.
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Weather, Weather, Everywhere?
The seasons that occur on other planets are extremely different from the traditional weather that we experience here on Earth.
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Dirty Ice on Mars
Instruments on the Odyssey spacecraft show that a lot of dirty ice sits within a meter of the surface in the south polar latitudes of Mars.
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Night of the Two Moons
Separated by more than a billion miles, Saturn's mysterious Titan and Earth's moon came together for a night in October.
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Titan's Surface Revealed
Piercing the smog enshrouding Titan, new images from Cassini reveal an exotic surface covered with a variety of materials.
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Blue Moon Rising
July 2004 has two full moons, which means one of them is a Blue Moon. But will it really be blue? Believe it or not, scientists say blue-colored moons are real.
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Was Galileo Wrong?
Could a fundamental assumptions of modern physics be wrong? Scientists are going to find out by bouncing laser beams off the Moon.
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Phases of the Moon
What is the relationship between the phase of the Moon and the time it rises or sets? Can you see a crescent at midnight? For how many hours will a full Moon be visible?
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Europa's Salty Surface
Pictures of Jupiter's moon Europa taken by the Galileo spacecraft during the past couple of years have suggested to scientists that there is now, or was in the past, an ocean beneath the satellite's frozen crust.
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Mercury Unveiled
Mercury, the second smallest planet and the closest one to the Sun, may appear to some as a drab, colorless, heavily-cratered world. Not so.
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INSPIRE
INSPIRE is a non-profit scientific, educational organization whose objective is to bring the excitement of observing natural and manmade radio waves in the audio region to high school students and others.
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Searching Antarctic Ice for Meteorites
Silver anniversary season: The vigorous life and times of the ANSMET team at Meteorite Hills resulted in a new set of 336 meteorites collected off the ice.
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Rules for Identifying Ancient Life
J. William Schopf (University of California, Los Angeles) has spent many years examining ancient rocks on Earth to identify the oldest fossils.
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Apparition of Comet Hale-Bopp
In an era where the celestial realm was the realm of the gods, the sudden appearance of an unknown object which dominated the night sky was terrifying.
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Uncharted Meteors
The solar system is littered with clouds of dust--some of them uncharted. Earth might encounter one someday.
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A World on the Edge
Sedna, a small planet-like object far beyond the orbits of Pluto and Neptune, may be the first sighting on an object on the edge of the mysterious Oort Cloud.
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An Untold Rock Story
A shiny gray rock called hematite may help tell the story of past water on Mars. Mars Rover Opportunity is exploring a hematite-rich region of the Red Planet.
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Maximum Impact
Sometimes asteroids and comets punch holes in planets - also called craters.
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