14 April 2017
Cassini finds evidence for hydrothermal vent activity on Enceladus
... two necessary ingredients are liquid water and the right chemical ingredients, primarily; carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. From these current observations researchers have determined that nearly 98 percent of the gas...
31 July 2017
Complex chemistry on Titan may form membranes
..., is one of our solar system's most curious bodies. It shares some similarities with Earth, such as a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere – 98.4 percent compared with Earth’s 78 percent – with a smattering of organic, carbon-based molecules, including...
26 January 2018
NASA launches GOLD to study Earth-space boundary
...ultraviolet light to determine the temperature and relative amounts of different particles, such as atomic oxygen and molecular nitrogen. It will then be able to provide a map of the Earth to reveal how atmospheric composition changes by location and...
31 January 2018
Surprise find of complex organic molecules in LMC
..., the LMC is referred to as a “low metallicity” galaxy because it lacks the rich abundance of heavy elements, like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen found in our galaxy. To become rich in heavy elements it can take several generations of the star...
07 March 2018
World's first firing for ESA's air-breathing electric thruster
... if the combined intake and thruster would work together or not. Finally, the xenon was replaced in stages by a nitrogen–oxygen air mixture until it could ignite solely from the collected atmospheric propellant. “This result means...
16 May 2018
Astronomers find stars forming just 250 million years after Big Bang
... were around in the Universe at that time; hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen only appeared after being created by fusion processes deep within the first stars. These atoms then...
