Space News

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The highest wind speeds in the atmosphere of mostly hydrogen, coloured by traces of other substances, are found near the equator and reach around 150 yards per second, said Prof Murray. The pictures clearly show Jupiter's famous Red Spot, a giant atmospheric storm as wide as two Earths, more than 300 years old, with winds of 300 mph.

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"Earth has an outer liquid iron core and solid inner core. This may be the case for Mars as well," said Dr. Charles Yoder, a planetary scientist at JPL and lead author on the paper. "Mars is influenced by the gravitational pull of the Sun. This causes a solid body tide with a bulge toward and away from the Sun (similar in concept to the tides on Earth). However, for Mars this bulge is much smaller, less than 1 centimeter (0.4 inch). By measuring this bulge in the Mars gravity field we can determine how flexible Mars is. The size of the measured tide is large enough to indicate the core of Mars can not be solid iron but must be at least partially liquid."

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The existence of the impact crater, Chicxulub, was first proposed in 1980. In the 1990s, satellite data and ground studies allowed it to gain prominence among most scientists as the long sought-after "smoking gun" responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs and more than 70 percent of Earth's living species 65 million years ago.

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Langley researchers are developing ARMOR, short for Adaptable, Robust, Metallic, Operable, Reusable TPS, as a potential system for future NASA spacecraft. The metallic tiles are roughly twice the size of the shuttle's 8-inch by 8-inch (20-cm by 20-cm) version, and composed of Inconel 617 and Inconel 718 metals, both nickel-based alloys. They are a bit heavier than the lightweight silica ceramic tiles NASA uses on the shuttle, which means they don't qualify as a potential replacement for the system just yet.