Planetary Science Research Discoveries

Planetary scientists sharing ideas and discoveries.

Planetary Science Research Discoveries (PSRD) is an educational site sharing the latest research being made by NASA-sponsored scientists on meteorites, planets, and other bodies in our Solar System. The website is supported by the Cosmochemistry Program of NASA's Science Mission Directorate and by Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium and is a vital link for planetary and space sciences, and for learning how science works.

Supported by NASA's Cosmochemistry Program and Hawai'i Space Grant Consortium.

Click the story title to read this month's featured article. Scroll down to see the 10 latest headline articles. Click the archive button in our navigation bar above for easy access to all 140+ articles in our collection.

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A Complication in Determining the Precise Age of the Solar System
(posted January 21, 2010)
The presence of short-lived isotope Curium-247 in the early Solar System complicates the job of dating the earliest events in the solar nebula.
You can also download a pdf version. PSRD-Curium-247.pdf

Violent Adolescent Planet Caught Infrared Handed
(posted January 5, 2010)
Infrared telescopic observations may have observed dust from an impact between protoplanets in the disk surrounding young star HD172555.
You can also download a pdf version. PSRD-circumstellar-dust.pdf

LINKS OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW.

A meteorite, verified by Smithsonian Institution scientists as an ordinary chondrite, crashed into an unoccupied room in a medical clinic on January 18, 2010 in Lorton, Virginia. The meteorite is at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. Read more and watch a video report from the Smithsonian Institution. See a newspaper report and video and read the Q&A about this meteorite fall and other fun facts with Smithsonian meteorite experts Linda Welzenbach and Cari Corrigan.

10 MOST RECENT HEADLINE ARTICLES. [ V I E W A L L ]

Celebrated Moon Rocks
Overview and status of the Apollo lunar collection: A unique, but limited, resource of extraterrestrial material.

An Even More Precise View of Aluminum-26 in the Solar Nebula
New, precise analyses of the short-lived isotope aluminum-26 indicate it was distributed uniformly throughout the early solar system, an important clue to its origin.

Kaidun--A Meteorite with Everything but the Kitchen Sink
This unique breccia is called a single-stone meteorite collection.

The Growing Diversity of Lunar Basalts
A lunar basaltic meteorite adds complexity to the already complicated story of mare basalt volcanism on the Moon.

Space Weathering Agent: Solar Wind
Bombardment of helium ions on olivine in the laboratory simulates space weathering of asteroids and other airless bodies.

Better Know A Meteorite Collection: Natural History Museum in London, United Kingdom
PSRD highlights places and people around the world who play central roles in caring for and analyzing meteorites.

The Complicated Geologic History of Asteroid 4 Vesta
Meteorites from asteroid 4 Vesta show that it contains patches of granite-like rock.

Better Know A Meteorite Collection: Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria
PSRD highlights places and people around the world who play central roles in caring for and analyzing meteorites.

Mars Crust: Made of Basalt
Chemical analyses of rocks on the Martian surface indicate that the Martian crust was built of basalt lava flows not much different from those on Earth.

Time to Solidify an Ocean of Magma
A small mineral grain places limits on how long it took the lunar magma ocean to solidify.

In this series of articles PSRD highlights the essential tools and amazing technology used by talented scientists seeking to unravel how the solar system formed.

This section of PSRD contains annotated slide sets that are associated with our articles. We hope you find the slides useful for your own talks and presentations.

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NASA Administrator, Charlie Bolden's statement on February 1, 2010 regarding the NASA budget. "In the science world, the president's plan supports space science research grants and dozens of operating and planned missions to study the planets and stars." (On page 8 of 10.)

Lunar Meteorites, comprehensive site from Randy Korotev, Washington University in St. Louis.

Mars Meteorites, comprehensive site from Ron Baalke, Jet Propulsion Lab.

Meteorites and Their Properties, by David A. Kring, Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The Meteoritical Society.

Fabulous Frozen Finds, descriptions and photos of newly classified meteorite samples collected by team members of the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program.

NASA Science Mission Directorate.

NASA National Space Grant Program.

NASA News and Events.

NASA Solar System Exploration.

NASA Lunar Science Institute.

Apollo Digital Image Archive, from Arizona State University.

Science@NASA from the Marshall Space Flight Center.

NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

Latest images from MOC: Mars Orbiter Camera on Mars Global Surveyor, from Malin Space Science System.

NASA Planetary Photojournal, comprehensive resource for publicly released images from Solar System exploration programs.

Discoveries in Planetary Science Slide Sets, from the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.

Welcome to the Planets, from NASA's Planetary Data System.

Solar System Lithographs of asteroids, comets, moons, planets, Sun, plus background information for each.

Stardust Mission, NASA's Comet Sample Return Mission.

Intute Science, Engineering and Technology resources for education and research.

space.com, Space news, information, education, and resources.

Astronomy Today, astronomy, cosmology, space exploration, sky guide, and space news.

New Scientist, science and technology weekly magazine.

Earth and Sky, daily science radio service and web site with stories covering Earth Science, Astronomy, and Environmental Science.

Classroom activities for Earth and Space Sciences

Exploring Planets in the Classroom, hands-on activities formatted in teacher-background pages and student sheets; from Hawaii Space Grant Consortium.

NASA Education and Public Outreach from the Science Mission Directorate.

NASA Space Science Education Resource Directory.

Space Science Education/Public Outreach Sites.

NASA's Structure and Evolution of the Universe Education.

NASA's Origins Program Education Forum classroom activities and tutorials.

NASA's Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum classroom activities.

LPI K-12 Education Resources Catalog, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

POETRY from NASA's Imager for Magnetosphere-to-Aurora Global Explorer (IMAGE) satellite program, for learning about Earth's magnetic field, aurora, and how solar storms cause disturbances in the Earth's space environment.

INSPIRE, bringing the excitement of observing natural and manmade radio waves in the audio region to high school students.

Astronomy and Space Science Activities, compiled for Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Galileo K-12 Educational Activities, for studying Jupiter and its moons.

Practical Uses of Math and Science, on-line journal of math and science examples for pre-college education.

Planetary Geology and Meteoritics

Greeley, R., 1994, Planetary Landscapes, Chapman and Hall, 286 p.

McSween Jr., H. Y., 2000, Meteorites and Their Parent Planets, Cambridge University Press, 310 p.

How Science Works

Strahler, Arthur N., 1992, Understanding Science: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, Prometheus Books, 409 p.

Sagan, Carl, 1995, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Random House, 457 p.


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