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Scientists may have figured out what the core of our planet is made of. We don't have directly access to the cadre — the best we can do is boreholes and, sometimes, magma. For some years, scientists accept been pretty sure that the inner core of the Globe is fabricated of 85% iron and x% nickel. What'south in the other 5% has remained elusive, but now scientists from Tohoku University in Japan have put along a study that may have identified that five% as silicon. They basically built a stripped-down scale model of the planet's interior, subjecting unlike combinations of elements to farthermost temperatures and pressures and then testing them with seismometers to determine which reacted in a way that agreed with what we run across our planet exercise. This study is interesting in light of other recent piece of work on the hypothesized origin of the moon, which argued that a silicon-rich exoplanet could take crashed into ours and been subsumed, whereafter the moon formed out of that combined, mostly molten bulk.

NASA scientists used the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to make a cool composite shot of the Earth and the Moon, as they appear from Mars. The paradigm is blurry, because information technology was taken from freakin' Mars, so the MRO had to zoom in the whole way. This is the same skilful spacecraft that mission scientists pressed into service to detect the crash site of the ExoMars rover after information technology lost its cool on the descent from orbit to the Martian surface. Check out what it sees:

Earth and the moon, as seen from Mars by the MRO.

Earth and the moon, equally seen from Mars past the MRO.

NASA is sending out ii new Discovery missions to the outer solar organisation. Ane of them is called Lucy, and it's supposed to launch in 2022 headed to ane of the asteroids that hang out at Jupiter'south leading and trailing Lagrange points. They're chosen Trojan asteroids, and while v other planets accept such asteroids, Jupiter has the most, by orders of magnitude. Scientists believe the Jupiter Trojans are "relics" of the early solar system — these chunks of debris orbiting with Jupiter are of the same mass of debris that aggregated to form the balance of our planets.

Lucy's sis Discovery mission, Psyche, is headed in 2023 for a fossil from deep time: 16 Psyche, a huge metallic asteroid that we remember used to be the core of an accumulation planet that got completely bashed to smithereens, way back in our solar organization'due south infancy. Both spacecraft will be toting sweet multispectral cameras, spectroscopy instruments and radio Doppler equipment, and given that 16 Psyche is supposed to be metallic, Psyche may also have a magnetometer aboard. NASA volition exist working with Lockheed Martin to build Lucy, and for Psyche, with the JPL, Infinite Systems/Loral and Arizona Country University. Lucy will also involve the Southwest Research Institute, and Psyche the Goddard Space Eye.

planet-nine-artist-illustration

Nobody has found Planet 9 yet, but at least we've almost figured out where to look. Epitome: NASA

Putative Planet 9 has another possible origin story. If it coalesced around our sun, it's most certainly an ice giant like Neptune. And a deadening giant indeed: it would make Pluto's 248-twelvemonth orbit await positively sprightly, with a possible orbital period of some 20,000 years. But scientists working with models ran the clock back and discovered that Planet 9 could also be a rogue planet that formed around another star and then was, for whatever reason, flung off into infinite, later which Sol (theoretically) captured it.

Hubble is taking a piddling while to sentry out the Voyagers' paths through interstellar space. While the Voyagers caput ever outward at two different angles away from the ecliptic, Hubble looked straight down the line-of-sight paths of the sibling spacecraft, to decide what lies ahead for their long haul. Mostly it'due south vacuum, with a side of clouds of common cold gas. But information technology's not all about the Voyagers. Their direct measurements of the interstellar medium, along with Hubble's observations on what lies where, volition be important for planning true interstellar missions such as the future Breakthrough Starshot, according to Julia Zachary, who presented findings from the Hubble-Voyager collaboration at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Speaking of the planning stages of Breakthrough Starshot, they're going to upgrade the ESO's Very Large Telescope and so they tin can use the radio interferometer to stare at Alpha Centauri — presumably to brand certain there's something there worth sending a fleet of tiny laser-propelled nano-spacecraft pelting after at a tidy 0.two C. The upgrade will trick out the VLT's VISIR instrument, adding a coronagraph, adaptive optics and possibly ameliorate scale equipment, in commutation for telescope time.