Posts by

Paul Scott Anderson

Webb observes Chariklo’s rings during occultation

NASA's Webb telescope took its 1st look at tiny asteroid Chariklo's rings, showing they contain water ice. Webb used a stellar occultation to observe the rings.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 29, 2023

New Milky Way survey reveals billions of objects

Astronomers at NOIRLab, using the Dark Energy Camera in Chile, have released a new Milky Way survey showing billions of objects in the galactic plane.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 27, 2023

Permanently shadowed crater captured by ShadowCam

NASA's ShadowCam instrument on the Danuri lunar orbiter has sent back its 1st image. It shows details inside a permanently shadowed crater on the moon.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 24, 2023

Life on Io? An astrobiologist says it’s possible

Could there be microbial life on Io? Jupiter's hostile volcanic moon seems an unlikely home, but astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch says it's not impossible.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 23, 2023

Discovery of opal on Mars boosts chances for life

NASA's Curiosity rover has found water-rich opal on Mars. Its presence indicates that there was an extensive and potentially habitable subsurface environment.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 19, 2023

Milky Way’s farthest stars reach halfway to Andromeda

Astronomers have discovered the Milky Way's farthest stars in our galaxy's huge stellar halo. The most distant stars are almost halfway to the Andromeda galaxy.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 17, 2023

Europa Clipper gets its gas-sniffing ‘nose’

NASA has receieved an advanced mass spectrometer for the Europa Clipper mission. It will analyze gases for clues about the ocean moon's habitability.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 14, 2023

Help NASA study exoplanets with Exoplanet Watch

Do you want to help NASA study exoplanets? Now you can, with the Exoplanet Watch citizen science project. All you need is a telescope or a smartphone.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 12, 2023

How to find life on Enceladus? Look in the plumes

Do we need to drill through miles of ice to find life on Enceladus? A new study says a simpler strategy is to just re-analyze the moon's water vapor plumes.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 8, 2023

Jupiter’s moon Io: Global magma ocean, or hot metal core?

2 new research papers debate whether Jupiter's moon Io has a magma ocean or a hot metal core. The results were presented at the AGU22 meeting this month.

Paul Scott Anderson

January 4, 2023

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Paul Scott Anderson

Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. While in school he was known for his passion for space exploration and astronomy. He started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was a chronicle of planetary exploration. In 2015, the blog was renamed as Planetaria. While interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis, and now currently writes for AmericaSpace and Futurism (part of Vocal). He has also written for Universe Today and SpaceFlight Insider, and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly and has done supplementary writing for the well-known iOS app Exoplanet for iPhone and iPad.