Category archives: Planetary Science

Ringed worlds

Ringed worlds

Planetary Science

By Santiago Pérez-Hoyos

Galileo Galilei was the first person to see rings around a planet. He was unable to understand the image in the eyepiece of his simple, though revolutionary, telescope. Was it a triple planet? Were it handles? Much to his surprise, the unfathomable shape of Saturn changed as years went by. It took some decades to […]

Exocomets

Exocomets

Planetary Science

By Santiago Pérez-Hoyos

Comets are one of the key components of our Solar System, at least for the Earth’s evolution and humankind point of view. While the inner region of our system was depleted in volatiles due to the high temperatures close to the Sun, the left overs in the outer borders retained water and other condensables in […]

Breathing planet

Breathing planet

Planetary Science

By Santiago Pérez-Hoyos

Ceres was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in the very first day of the XIX century somewhere between Mars and Jupiter orbits. It was once considered the biggest asteroid in the Solar System but the 2006 Pluto demotion resulted in an upgrade of Ceres into the newly created dwarf-planet category, in which it became the smallest […]