Earth and Planetary Science

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Philae spacecraft created history when it landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The spacecraft began its journey to the comet 10 years back. Read on to find out more. 

An influential group of US astronomers have proposed the building of the High-Definition Space Telescope (HDST), the biggest and most advanced space telescope, according to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) report published on July 6. The HDST would complement the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be launched in 2018 and will observe the universe at infrared wavelengths. Read on to learn more about this.

Using information about gravitational waves, acquired from the Parkes radio telescope, scientists have been able to study the growth of supermassive black holes. Read more in Science.

Ryan Shannon et al., Science, 2013; 342 DOI: 10.1126/science.1238012 

A group of astronomers has analyzed telescope data collected over 12 years and found a signal that could be the first ever detection of dark matter. The dark matter supposedly comprises 85% of all the matter in the universe, and although it exerts its force on stars, scientists have not been able to detect it conclusively. Read on to find out more.

According to a new study, the presence of molecular hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and water on Mars could have created a greenhouse effect on the red planet 3.8 billion years. To know more, read on. 

Climate scientists have proposed different ways of countering global warming that has warmed the planet – for instance, pumping water-based sulphate spray into the sky to reflect and scatter the Sun's energy – but most have been highly debated. Now a team of researchers from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have suggested that a safer way of dealing with global warming would be to use dusts of solid, nanometre-sized particles of diamond or aluminum oxide as it would be less damaging to the atmosphere. Read more about their research here.

Pluto, the dwarf planet, has five satellites out of which three satellites named Styx, Nix, and Hydra have become gravitationally locked and are moving together in an unusual orbit. Researchers observed that the three moons of Pluto have formed a peculiar pattern known as a three-body resonance. Read on to learn more about this.

A team of Japanese researchers found an unusual community of bacteria thriving in the canyon called Challenger Deep. The microscopic bacteria are called heterotrophs, and cannot produce their own food, and thus, must eat what they find in the water. Read on to know more about this mysterious community. 

The opinion of scientists is divided about the relation between mass extinctions and impact craters caused by asteroid and comet showers on Earth. Now two researchers, Michael Rampino, a New York University geologist, and Ken Caldeira, a scientist in the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, have concluded through their observations that the age of impact craters is linked to mass extinctions of life on Earth, including the demise of the dinosaurs. Read more about their research here.

A team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona, USA, have discovered an exoplanet, named HD 131399Ab, which has three stars. As a result, it likely experiences triple sunrises and sunsets each day, and constant light or darkness for certain periods of time. According to the astronomers, for half of the planet’s orbit, three stars are visible in the sky. Read more about their research here.