- Industry: Astronomy
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Planetary Science Research Discoveries (PSRD) is an educational site sharing the latest research by NASA-sponsored scientists on meteorites, asteroids, planets, moons, and other materials in our Solar System. The website is supported by the Cosmochemistry Program of NASA's Science Mission ...
The study of light as a function of wavelength that has been reflected or scattered from a solid, liquid, or gas. Also see spectroscopy.
Industry:Astronomy
The brightest of the known asteroids. Also called 4 Vesta because it was the fourth asteroid to be discovered (by Olbers in 1807).
Industry:Astronomy
A mostly solid layer of Earth lying beneath the crust and above the core; consisting mostly of iron, magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. On other planets and moons, the mantle is the layer between the crust and core. Mantles contain information about a planet's total composition, a key parameter in understanding planet formation and how the planets vary in composition with distance from the Sun. A second definition of mantle is a smooth blanket of surface material (generally fine-grained, sometimes layered) that was deposited by some process such as wind or water and that now obscures the underlying land.
Industry:Astronomy
The process describing when one lithospheric plate collides with and is overridden by, or descends under, an adjacent plate.
Industry:Astronomy
Consolidated, fragmental rock consisting of rock, mineral, or glass fragments (also called clasts) embedded in a fine-grained matrix. (See also monomict and polymict. )
Industry:Astronomy
One of the three types of meteorites from Mars (the SNC meteorites). The type is named after the Shergotty meteorite, which fell in India in 1865. Basaltic shergottites consist mainly of plagioclase and pyroxenes. They are fine-grained and probably formed as volcanic lava flows or shallow intrusions. Lherzolitic shergottites are related to the basaltic shergottites but are coarser grained, have larger amounts of olivine, and are considered to be cumulate rocks.
Industry:Astronomy
Pertaining to carbon-containing compounds. Organic compounds can be formed by both biological and non-biological processes.
Industry:Astronomy
Sudden motion or trembling of the Moon caused by the abrupt release of slowly accumulated elastic energy in rocks.
Industry:Astronomy
A star in the process of formation which has not yet become hot enough in the core to initiate the process of nuclear fusion (10<sup>7</sup> K) to halt its gravitational collapse.
Industry:Astronomy
An imaginary sphere centered on the Earth, or arbitrary large radius on the surface of which the stars are considered to be fixed.
Industry:Astronomy
