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 130+ articles in our collection.

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An Even More Precise View of Aluminum-26 in the Solar Nebula
(posted November 13, 2009)
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.
You can also download a pdf version. PSRD-Al-26-distribution.pdf

LINKS OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW.

Job Announcement: Postdoctoral Researcher in Planetary Petrology Position. The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in the petrology of planetary materials. For further information, please visit http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/positions.shtml. Universities Space Research Association is an Equal Opportunity Employer. [Posted October 5, 2009.]

NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission impacted the Moon on October 9, 2009 with the goal of searching for water ice at the south pole. Follow the developments at the LCROSS website.

In a trio of papers in the journal Science, researchers report evidence of low concentrations of water all across the Moon. Also read more about it at NASA Mission News, Scientific American, and The Associated Press. [September 24, 2009.]

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

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.

More Evidence for Multiple Meteorite Magmas
Cosmochemists show that a pair of meteorites formed in an asteroid that erupted a newly-recognized type of asteroidal magma.

The Crazy Mixed-Up Lunar Crust
The horizontal and vertical distribution of well-mixed basin ejecta has lunar-wide geochemical ramifications.

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.

Join the growing list of subscribers - sign up for our mailing list and you will receive an e-mail notice of each new issue of PSRD.

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NASA's Vision for Space Exploration. "NASA is charting a bold new course into the cosmos, a journey that will take humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars and beyond. "

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

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

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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