USA TODAY
Scientists discovered an extremely distant object billions of miles beyond Pluto.
The object has an orbit that hints at an even-farther-out “Super-Earth” or larger “Planet X” that could be lurking out there.
The findings were announced Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.
The object,… Read more
New extremely distant Solar System object found during hunt for Planet X | Carnegie Institution for Science
Washington, DC—Carnegie’s Scott Sheppard and his colleagues—Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo, and the University of Hawaii’s David Tholen — are once again redefining our Solar System’s edge. They discovered a new extremely distant object far beyond Pluto with an orbit that supports the presence of an even-farther-out, Super-Earth or larger Planet X.
The newly found object, called 2015 TG387, was announced Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. A paper with the full details of the discovery has… Read more
Can Mars Be Terraformed? – Scientific American Blog
People have long thought about converting Mars from the cold, dry planet it is today to one that would be inhabitable by humans. This notion of “terraforming” Mars has been popular for decades in science fiction and popular media—including, for example, several of the Star Trek movies and television episodes. In some sense, the idea of a terraformed Mars harkens back to the time when Percival Lowell postulated that Mars was inhabited by Martians, using giant canals to transport… Read more
Think twice before moving to Mars—NAU planetary scientist refutes terraforming in NASA study
By Kerry Bennett
Office of the Vice President for Research
Colonizing Mars as a backup planet for Earth has been a theme in both science fiction and popular science for decades, and NASA plans to send human explorers to the Red Planet within the next 20 years.
But how feasible is it… Read more
NAU Planetary Scientist Refutes Terraforming Mars
Christopher Edwards paper in Nature Astronomy was published and resulted in lots of press coverage: “Inventory of CO2 available for Terraforming Mars.” This article and NAU were mentioned in over 120 nationally and internationally recognized news articles. Such as (more…)
View from Mars Hill: Searching for Jupiter’s moons | Local | azdailysun.com
Four score and eight years ago, Clyde Tombaugh brought forth on this continent a new planet (apologies to Abraham Lincoln on many counts, including being off by one year). The planet’s name was Pluto and its discovery culminated the search begun by Percival Lowell for Planet X — a theoretical new member of our solar system. Last week, a team of astronomers including NAU’s Chad Trujillo announced their own startling discovery while carrying out a modern Planet X… Read more