The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is a research institute based in Tucson, Arizona, focusing on planetary science. Founded in 1972 on a non-profit basis, it is involved in many NASA missions, the study of Mars, asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, the formation of the Solar System, extrasolar planets, the origin of life, and other scientific topics. It is now actively participating in the Dawn mission, scheduled to explore Vesta between 2011 and 2012, and Ceres in 2015. PSI manages the spacecraft's Gamma-Ray and Neutron Detector, which will map the surfaces of the two minor planets to determine how they were formed and evolved. The Institute's orbit@home is a distributed computing project through which the public can help in the search for near-Earth objects. The Institute is also involved in science education through school programs, popular science books and art. Its scientific Staff are distributed in 16 US states and in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Russia and Australia. Its present director (2009) is Dr. Mark V. Sykes.
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Long ago, flowing wind and water shaped Mars's malleable sand and sediment into dunes, ripples and other landscape patterns, called bedforms. Over billions of years, some of these landforms hardened into rock—scientists ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 25, 2024
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A new analysis of maps of the near and far sides of the moon shows that there are multiple sources of water and hydroxyl in the sunlit rocks and soils, including water-rich rocks excavated by meteor impacts at all latitudes.
Planetary Sciences
Sep 23, 2024
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People have observed the bright Martian poles wax and wane for centuries, but only within the last 50 years have scientists discovered that they are mostly comprised of carbon dioxide cycling in and out of the atmosphere ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 3, 2024
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Differences between the bright and dark patches in lunar swirls goes beyond the albedo variations; it includes differences in the structure of the lunar soils and the grains within those soils.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 18, 2024
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Mars polar ice caps were one of the first Earth-like characteristics identified on Mars. Since the development of film in the 19th Century, researchers expected to see Earth-like activity, such as polar ice flow. Mars, however, ...
Planetary Sciences
Jun 10, 2024
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Ceres, the largest asteroid in our solar system, harbors a dark secret: extremely young ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters near its poles. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because our moon and planet Mercury ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 16, 2024
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Saturn's moon Mimas could have grown a huge underground ocean as its orbital eccentricity decreased to its present value and caused its icy shell to melt and thin.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 15, 2024
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New measuring techniques will enable improved measurements of the Earth's ionosphere, a key to studying and reducing the impact of space weather.
Planetary Sciences
Feb 27, 2024
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Stars that pass by our solar system have altered the long-term orbital evolution of planets, including Earth, and, by extension, modified our climate.
Astrobiology
Feb 14, 2024
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The unique two thin rings around the Centaur Chariklo could be shaped by an even smaller satellite. Chariklo is a Centaur, which are small bodies similar to asteroids in size but to comets in composition, that revolve around ...
Astronomy
Feb 6, 2024
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