Sentences with phrase «by comet dust»

- The giant radio telescopes of NASA's Deep Space Network — which perform radio and radar astronomy research in addition to their communications functions — were tasked with observing radio emissions from Jupiter's radiation belt, looking for disturbances caused by comet dust.

Not exact matches

The images reveal a narrow, well - defined jet of dust ejected by the comet's icy, fragile nucleus.

Earth is surrounded by a cloud of debris, both natural — such as micrometeorites and comet dust, which create meteor showers — and unnatural, including dead satellites and the cast - off detritus of space launches.

The finding suggests the comet's surrounding cloud of gas and dust may largely be fed by underlying ices, rather than by gas streaming off its surface.

If sunlight must penetrate the dust covering a comet's water ice in order to warm it and produce jets, Sunshine says the Deep Impact findings suggest the ices on such dormant comets may not have run out but merely become sealed — by layers of debris, for example.

Many young stars known to host planets also possess disks containing dust and icy grains, particles produced by collisions among asteroids and comets also orbiting the star.

The team that made this discovery, led by Yale University astronomer Tabetha Boyajian — the star's namesake — suggested a variety of explanations for its strange behavior, including that the star itself was variable, that it was surrounded by clouds of dust or dusty comets, or that planets around it had collided or were still forming.

Scientists think the magnesium, and possibly other metals not yet detected, comes from cosmic dust left by passing comets.

By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, via both remote and in - situ observations, the Rosetta mission should be a key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life.

In January the Stardust spacecraft cruised by Earth and tossed down a 95 - pound canister packed with comet particles and interstellar dust, souvenirs scooped up during its seven - year journey past comet Wild 2.

Stardust's cache was sanitized by intense heat as comet particles collided at 14,000 miles per hour with foamy aerogel in the probe's dust collector.

It showed that the young sun was surrounded by a disk of gas and dust so agitated that particles in the hot, inner regions might be flung out to the cold, distant zone where comets formed.

For example, another research team has already analyzed the gas and dust emitted by Wild 2, and astronomers look forward to January 2006 when a Stardust capsule containing thousands of comet dust particles will return to Earth for more thorough investigation.

Prior to impact, Tempel 1 displayed the same streaming dust as any other comet, pushed back from the cometary body by the sun's radiation.

In 2009, scientists reported that they had found the simplest amino acid, glycine, in comet dust brought back by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, but it's possible those samples were contaminated with dust from Earth.

DARMSTADT, GERMANY — The comet 67P / Churyumov - Gerasimenko, which the Rosetta spacecraft is now orbiting, is by all accounts a fascinating chunk of dust and ice.

They attributed this to the glow of dust created by asteroids or comets that were gravitationally ripped apart when they wandered too close to the dead star.

Named Brownleeite after Donald Brownlee (a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle and head of NASA's Stardust comet sample return mission), the substance was identified in a speck of cosmic dust taken from the stratosphere in 2003 by a high - altitude NASA aircraft.

«We're not sure whether these stars are holding onto reservoirs of gas much longer than expected, or whether there's a sort of «last gasp» of second - generation gas produced by collisions of comets or evaporation from the icy mantles of dust grains,» said Meredith Hughes, an astronomer at Wesleyan University and coauthor of the study.

Stars quickly clear dust away from their vicinity by the force of their radiation, so the presence of a dusty disc suggests collisions between asteroids or comets are replenishing it.

Recent modeling along with previously published results from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft — short for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, a mission that observed Mercury from 2011 to 2015 — has shed new light on how certain types of comets influence the lopsided bombardment of Mercury's surface by tiny dust particles called micrometeoroids.

Disks of gas and dust, interstellar debris, comet swarms or even black holes are some of the exotic potential explanations considered by theorists.

A comet usually too faint to be seen with the naked eye has brightened by a factor of a million since Tuesday, suggesting its surface may have cracked open and expelled clouds of dust and gas.

A new generation of sensitive, high - resolution telescopes will help resolve the debate by probing both dust clouds and the protoplanetary disks from which asteroids, comets, and planets form.

It shows the inner cloud of dust and gas surrounding the comet's nucleus increasing by 200 kilometres (about 120 miles) in size.

The mission, perhaps the most ambitious one ever undertaken by the European Space Agency, will now join the comet as it begins a lap around the sun, heats up, and releases stores of ice in a cloud of dust and gas.

The formation of our Solar System was a chaotic collapse of gas and dust into the Sun, planets, asteroids, and comets we have today, punctuated by catastrophic collisions between these forming...

By studying the gas, dust and structure of the nucleus and organic materials associated with the comet, the Rosetta mission should become key to unlocking the history and evolution of our solar system, as well as answering questions regarding the origin of Earth's water and perhaps even life.

The modelling suggested that a Neptune - like planet actually formed much closer to Vega and was pushed by a Jupiter - like planet in an inner orbit out to its current wide orbit around 80 AUs away from Vega over about 56 million years, sweeping many comets out with it and causing the dust disk to become clumpy (Mark C. Wyatt, 2003).

According to the space agency, astronomers exploring a disk of gas and dust around a nearby star uncovered a compact cloud of poisonous gas formed by constant collisions among the comet - like bodies.

Designed by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, SDC is detecting dust grains produced by collisions among asteroids, comets, and Kuiper Belt objects during New Horizons» journey.

MAVEN's instruments sent back data on the gases and dust released by Siding Spring, while others are currently assessing the impact of the comet's tail on the Martian atmosphere.

Sandblasted by interstellar dust gains and irradiated over eons, long - period comets from the Oort Cloud are not exactly pristine relics from the birth of the Solar System (more).

On November 4, 2010, NASA's EPOXI mission flew at a close distance of around 435 miles (or 700 kilometers) by Comet Hartley 2, which was then an active short - period comet with jets of gas and dust coming off its sun - lit end and which completes an orbit in less than 6.5 years.

It is produced by dust grains left behind by comet 21P Giacobini - Zinner, which was first discovered in 1900.

Interestingly, NASA scientists have even found PQQ in the interstellar comet dust particles that were brought back by a probe years ago!

But perhaps what we all appreciate most about that car is how, like a comet leaving a streak of gleaming dust in its wake, it blazed the trail for the M2, which considerably more customers will be able to enjoy — something that has not been mentioned enough by the enthusiast media.

When a comet drive - by leaves a cloud of purple dust in space, altering the familiar view from Earth, the collective...