17 October 2016
ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbitor positions itself ready for its planned orbit insertion on Wednesday
... by Schiaparelli. The TGO also carries scientific instruments of its own to detect and study trace gases, such as methane, water vapour, nitrogen oxides, and acetylene that are present in very small amounts (less than 1%) in the...
22 February 2017
NASA announces the discovery of first-ever exoplanet system with seven Earth-size planets
... the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet system. Webb will enable the research team to detect chemical traces of water, oxygen, methane, and other chemicals, as well as analyze temperatures and surface pressures. “This discovery could be a significant piece in the...
23 October 2017
Space race ramps up between Blue Origin and SpaceX
... as an upper stage on the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. The Raptor prototype is powered by densified liquid methane and liquid oxygen, and it will have over three times the thrust of the Merlin 1D engine that...
13 December 2017
Bright spots suggest Ceres is surprisingly active
... a fractured surface. The upsurge of briny water driven to the surface by a small amount of gas such as water vapour, methane or ammonia – in the the way champagne gushes out of its bottle when the cork is removed – boiled off...
23 March 2018
ESA selects ARIEL to look closely at exoplanets
... layers, and making them easier to detect. Well-known ingredients such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane will be searched for with ARIEL’s metre-class telescope that looks at the molecules in visible and infrared...
20 August 2018
Galaxy should be teeming with water-worlds say researchers
... molecular compounds that make up the water-worlds are molecules such as water (H2O), ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4), along with a small amount of gas. "We have looked at how mass relates to radius, and developed a model...
