Nov. 14, 2018
In November 2017, a team of scientists pointed NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope toward a comet-like object known as ’Oumuamua—the first interstellar body ever found in our solar system—but the object proved too faint for the infrared telescope to detect.
Though initially disappointing, this non-detection of ’Oumuamua eventually provided new information about… Read more
NAU student contributing to NASA’s search for life on Mars by blowing up space rocks with robot lasers
Nov. 8, 2018
Nuclear-powered laser beams; Martian rocks vaporized to dust; clouds of plasma emitting light waves captured by space robots—to most, this sounds like the makings of a science-fiction novel. To Northern Arizona University doctoral student Sarah Lamm, this is just another day at work. As a member of NASA’s Curiosity mission team and a student of astronomy and planetary science, searching… Read more
Planet X? ‘Goblin’ object hints at world billions of miles from Pluto
USA TODAY
![An artist's conception of distant "Planet X," which could be shaping the orbits of smaller extremely distant objects.](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2018/10/01/USAT/6d6ddd4a-7c36-421a-bbb2-0b7bf32c9539-181666.jpg?width=660&height=372&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
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
![](https://nau.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/152//2018/12/MAVENInfographicDigitalFINAL-1-1024x451-600x264.png)
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