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An image of a satellite in space, microplastics, and soybeans.

Earth & Environment

3 things you should know — September edition

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Meet Renée-Claude Goulet, Jesse Rogerson, and Michelle Campbell Mekarski. These Ingenium employees are professional science communicators, and provide expert advice on key subjects relating to our three museums — the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. In this new monthly blog series, Ingenium’s science communicators offer up three quirky nuggets related to their areas of expertise. For the September edition,

An artists impression of an exoplanet

Planets like 'Tatooine' Could Still Be Habitable

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

The first exosolar planet (a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun) was discovered in 1995, and since then humans have found over 3600 planets outside of our solar system. Some of those found are orbiting not one star like we do, but two stars. For example, stars Kepler-35A and 35B orbit each other, but a planet Kepler-35b, orbits both of them. This is much more like the fantasy word Tatooine in the space epic Star Wars than our own planet Earth. In A New Hope, we see young Luke Skywalker

Saturn's moon Enceladus. Image taken by Cassini

One of Saturn's moons might have tipped over

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Even nearing the end, the Cassini spacecraft is still producing amazing science. This story focuses on Saturn's moon Enceladus; researchers from Cornell University in New York say they have found evidence that the moon has changed its polar axis of spin. This is based on features they've found on the surface of the moon.

Earth as seen from space

The next generation of Earth Observation: Earth-i

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

A new company called Earth-i has announced it will be launching a constellation of satellites into Earth's orbit that will download "fast-turn-around pictures and colour video of the planet's surface."

An artists impression of exoplanets.

Hundreds of New Exoplanet Candidates

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

A full re-examination of the Kepler Space Telescope's data has revealed an additional 10 new planets that are near-Earth size and in their host-star's habitable zone. Even more interesting, follow-up studies on all of the rocky planets discovered by Kepler (thousands) to-date show that smaller planets come in two sizes. They are either 1.5 Earth Radii and smaller, or 2 Earth Radii and larger. The Kepler Space Telescope held its primary data collection from 2009 to 2013. The total number of

Blue swirls of phytoplankton in the Black Sea, imaged from space.

Swirling Phytoplankton in the Black Sea

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Around this time of year, the Black Sea blooms with a massive growth of phytoplankton. This particular species of phytoplankton known as coccolithophores, are plated with white calcium carbonate, making the bloom very easy to see from space. NASA's Aqua satellite gathered these data.

A global map indicating the locations of mangrover forests.

Earth & Environment

Measuring the biomass of a mangrove forest

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

How much carbon dioxide can a tree absorb and store? That's a tough question to answer. A group from the University of Maryland and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center went to Pongara National Park in Gabon to gather data on a massive Mangrove forest: the structure of the trees, their thickness and density, and even the biomass below the ground. These data will help answer questions on carbon storage, coastline degradation, and help them compare to other mangrove forest structures around the

Saturn's moon Titan.

Summer Arrives on Titan

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

The Cassini spacecraft took this image of the north pole of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, in the near-infrared. The dark spots near the top of the image are Titan's massive polar lakes of methane. Also visible are white streaks of cloud. The Saturnian system has moved into summer solstice for the northern hemisphere, shedding more light on Titan's north pole.

An artists impression of the Cassini spacecraft above Saturn

Understanding Saturn, its rings, and its moons: The Cassini-Huygens Mission

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is a dual orbiter (Cassini) and lander (Huygens) currently orbiting Saturn. It launched from Cape Canaveral on October 15, 1997, entered orbit around Saturn on the July 1, 2004, and has been studying the Saturnian system ever since. After two mission extensions, and a grand total of almost 13 years orbiting the giant gas planet, Cassini-Huygens’ mission is now coming to a close. The European Space Agency (ESA) built and operated the Huygens lander, which flew with

An artists impression of the Curiosity rover

Ancient Martian lakes investigated by Curiosity

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

The Curiosity rover has been at Gale Crater on Mars since its landing on the red planet in August of 2012, and over the last 5 years has assembled a strong case indicating the conditions on Mars in the distant past were favourable for life. Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York recently took a comprehensive look at Curiosity's findings over the years and has reached a conclusion that within the lake that existed at Gale Crater, there is evidence of stratification. This means that