Planetary Science Update

Audio

07/11/2008

Jul. 11, 2008

Planetary Science Update

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In this segment, we'll get the latest from around the solar system, checking in with scientists on both the Mars Phoenix and Mercury Messenger space missions.

A suite of 11 papers examining Mercury were recently published. The papers were the result of a close flyby of the planet earlier this year. Among the findings were the fact that the planet appears to have an iron core, has volcanoes larger than the state of Delaware, and appears to have shrunk over time as it cooled -- and cracked during the process.

On Mars, the Phoenix lander successfully identified water ice crystals in a soil sample scooped up by the lander. The scientists running the mission are now using onboard instruments to perform a more complicated analysis of the Martian soil and its contents. We'll get the latest.

Produced by Annette Heist, Senior Producer

Guests

Peter Smith
Principal Investigator

NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission

Senior Research Scientist, Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory

University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona
Ralph McNutt, Jr
Project Scientist, MESSENGER mission

Applied Physics Laboratory

Johns Hopkins University

Laurel, Maryland

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