Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet beyond our Solar System, a sizzling, Jupiter-like world known as Kepler-7b. Kepler-7b (left), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (right), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. The cloud map was [continue reading]
Turbulent jet streams, regions where winds blow faster than in other places, churn east and west across Saturn. Scientists have been trying to understand for years the mechanism that drives these wavy structures in Saturn’s atmosphere and the source from which the jets derive their energy. A particularly strong jet stream churns through Saturn’s [continue reading]
Mars’ carbon dioxide ‘snowflakes’ are about the size of red blood cells. Researchers have determined the size of CO2 snow particles on Mars, depicted in this artist’s rendering as a mist or fog that eventually settles to the surface as carbon dioxide snow. Image credit: NASA, Christine Daniloff/MIT News In the dead of a Martian [continue reading]