After an enterprise lasting nearly a decade, the Israeli unmanned Moon mission “Beresheet” (“Genesis” in Hebrew) will soon take off from Earth, bound for the Moon’s rocky surface. Prof. Oded Aharonson of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is head of the international science team, and will be watching closely as the craft approaches the Moon and initiates the scientific part of the mission, which will start well before touchdown.
February 11, 2019
The race to land humans on Mars is on again – and at an accelerated pace. Superpowers including China and the United States have declared their intentions to land astronauts on the Red Planet, as have private entrepreneurs who are taking the challenge seriously, among them Elon Musk.
January 29, 2019
Weizmann scientists analyzed data from Cassini’s last mission to find surprising information about Saturn and its rings, reports The Jerusalem Post.
January 22, 2019
Under general relativity, a black hole is inescapable. Once something travels beyond the event horizon into the heart of the black hole, there’s no return. So intense is the gravitational force of a black hole that not even light - the fastest thing in the Universe - can achieve escape velocity.
Under general relativity, therefore, a black hole emits no electromagnetic radiation. But, as a young Stephen Hawking theorised in 1974, it does emit something when you add quantum mechanics to the mix.
January 21, 2019
Grand Finale was the official name of Cassini’s last act: a risky orbit between Saturn’s rings and atmosphere in a daring attempt to view the planet up close, just before going down in flames. Prof. Yohai Kaspi and Dr. Eli Galanti of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences led one of the studies on Cassini’s final mission: revealing the depth of Saturn’s jet streams ‒ the strongest measured in the Solar System, with winds of up to 1,500 km (about 932 mi) per hour ‒ and found them to reach a depth of around 9,000 km (about 5,600 mi). Teaming up with research partners in Italy and the U.S., their study also helped reveal the age of the planet’s iconic rings. The findings of these studies were published in Science.
January 17, 2019
The craft will carry a Weizmann Institute project to measure the moon’s magnetic field.
October 03, 2018
Study author Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto conducted the highly precise dating of the ancient Greek branch.
August 10, 2018
In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin claimed that life on Earth developed through gradual chemical changes of organic molecules in the “primordial soup” that likely existed here four billion years ago. In his view, the complex combination of lifeless molecules, joining forces within small oily droplets, could assume life faculties – self-replication, selection, and evolution. These ideas were received with considerable doubt, which remains today.
July 2018
Ten moons have been discovered orbiting Jupiter – 9 “normal” outer ones and an “oddball” – scientists from the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington reported on Tuesday. Including the previously unknown moons, Jupiter now has 79 known moons orbiting the giant planet, more than any other planet in our Solar System. Saturn has the second highest number of known moons: 61.
July 17, 2018
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