"We'll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-moon system passes through the same region of space, " Cooke said.
But in constructing the first atmospheric model that has the orbital dynamics of a star-planet-moon system fully included, astronomers Duncan Forgan, at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, and David Kipping, at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, turn that idea on its head.
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It also found that Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has a magnetic field.
Weather of a slightly more familiar kind is thought to exist on Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn and the only moon in the solar system to have a thick atmosphere.
And water would be all the more exciting on Ganymede because it is the largest moon in the solar system (larger even than the planets Mercury and Pluto) and, like earth, it has a permanent magnetic field that protects part of its surface from bombardment by certain sorts of life-destroying radiation.
The European Space Agency believes the vehicle's capabilities will feed into many other exploration activities, at the Moon, Mars and other Solar System destinations.
It's a tremendous step, the first of many as we get into exploration of the Solar System, back to the Moon and on to Mars.
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In 1609, Italian philosopher and physicist Galileo Galilei used descriptions of Lippershey's gadget to build his own telescope, and with it he was able to observe the Earth, the Moon and several planets in our solar system in detail for the first time.
Moon Express is developing a smaller, lighter system that costs a tenth of comparable current NASA technology.
But increasing those benefits would reduce the money available for reform of the whole system, according to researcher Marilyn Moon at the Urban Institute.
Dr Amy Mainzer, principal investigator on the Neowise (Near-Earth Wise observations) project at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in California, said that "estimating the ages and origins of the asteroids should help us to correlate events on Earth and impact craters on the Moon with what is going on in the Solar System".
In turn, that should help resolve questions about how the Moon, the Earth, and other planets in the solar system evolved in the first place.
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Very similar to the famous Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the six-wheeled bot created by a team at Shanghai Aerospace System Engineering Institute is capable of cruising around the Moon at a reported 100 meters per hour, all the while snapping photos and collecting bits of moon rock for analysis and possible sale on eBay.
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In other words, human exploration of the solar system does not have to be fixed doggedly on the moon first and Mars later.
This servicing plan should free up resources for Nasa to build an astronaut Space Launch System capable of travelling beyond the station, to the Moon, asteroids and to Mars.
On Monday, January 21st, the Moon will appear amazingly close in the sky to the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter.
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This supports models where the moon is derived from Earth materials that were ejected during a giant impact event early in solar system history.
It is thought to be just over 100m years old (Apollo 17 brought back material from the site, which allowed it to be dated), and it is reckoned by Dr Bottke to be the result of the moon encountering one of the first of Baptistina's progeny to arrive in the inner solar system.
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Kepler-37b is a tad larger than our heavenly dance partner, the Moon, and whizzes round a star much like our Sun, with two larger planets in its system for company.
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All three had dust discs at least twice as wide as the solar system, but weighing no more than a few times as much as the earth's moon.
But what's novel about the CEAC design is that it incorporates a bio-regenerative life-support system -- the kind of technology that could one day not only feed an outpost on the moon or Mars, but also provide it with oxygen and recycle its water.
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