Dr. Maddy Turner is a planetary scientist working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute. Maddy’s primary research focuses on remote structural mapping and quantitative geomorphology of planetary bodies, including the development and implementation of methods.
As a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, Maddy works to characterize the Martian and Lunar surfaces through statistical analyses of cratered terrains. Her recent publications describe how changes in Mars’ sedimentary rocks can inform us about regional and global climate patterns in the planet’s history.
Not Just Aliens is the SETI Institute’s weekly series featuring scientists exploring astrobiology, heliophysics, planetary science, and more — expanding the search for life beyond Earth. And sometimes, we feature scientists looking for technosignatures!
#PlanetaryScience #Space #Science #SETI #NotJustAliens
ALT Text: #notjustaliens. Maddy Turner, Planetary Science. Background: Starry night sky. Inset: Photo of Maddy Turner.
ALT Text: Dr. Maddy Turner is a planetary scientist working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute. Maddy’s primary research focuses on remote structural mapping and quantitative geomorphology of planetary bodies, including the development and implementation of methods. Background: Starry night sky with graphics of a star and exoplanets in front of it.
ALT Text: As a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, Maddy works to characterize the Martian and Lunar surfaces through statistical analyses of cratered terrains. Her recent publications describe how changes in Mars’ sedimentary rocks can inform us about regional and global climate patterns in the planet’s history. Background: Starry night sky with graphics of a star and exoplanets.
ALT SETI Institute logo. Graphics: (top) Black hole. (bottom) radio telescope dishes at the Allen Telescope Array. Background: Starry night sky.
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Jun 13
DYNAMIC RED PLANET: THE WHIRLWINDS OF MARS
Mars is far more geologically and atmospherically dynamic than its quiet, frozen reputation suggests. 🌪️🔴
NASA missions have documented well over 1,000 active dust devils swirling across its surface. Often referred to as "Martian tornadoes," these massive columns of spinning wind play a crucial role in the planet's climate ecosystem by lifting fine dust high into the thin atmosphere, reshaping the desert landscape one vortex at a time.#Mars #Astronomy #PlanetaryScience #NASA #SpaceExploration
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Jun 12
🌍 Earth Has a Heartbeat — And No One Knows Why
Every 26 seconds, like clockwork, our planet pulses.
A faint seismic tremor — too small to feel, but strong enough to register on seismographs across continents.
🕰️ A 60-Year-Old Mystery
Geologist Jack Oliver first documented the pulse in the early 1960s at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. [Discover Magazine](discovermagazine.com/the-ear…) Working with paper records and primitive instruments, he could only narrow it down to somewhere in the southern or equatorial Atlantic.
In 1980, USGS geologist Gary Holcomb found the pulse grows stronger during storms. [Discover Magazine](discovermagazine.com/the-ear…) Then the trail went cold for decades.
📍 Triangulated at Last
In 2005, Greg Bensen and a team at the University of Colorado finally located the source: the Gulf of Guinea [La Brújula Verde](labrujulaverde.com/en/2020/1…) — specifically a stretch called the Bight of Bonny, off the coast of West Africa.
🌋 Three Theories, No Consensus
🔹 **Ocean waves** slamming the continental shelf at just the right angle — a kind of planetary drum.
🔹 **A volcano** on São Tomé island, suspiciously close to the epicenter. A similar volcanic microseism is documented in Japan.
🔹 **Sediment cracks** in the seabed releasing rhythmic stress.
All major explanations have been challenged, leaving the 26-second tremor officially unsolved. [GOOD](good.is/scientists-puzzled-b…)
🤔 Why It Matters — Or Doesn't
The microseism harms nothing. It damages nothing. It just… keeps going. Which is why seismologists have largely shrugged and moved on to louder problems.
But think about that: in an age of satellites, AI, and quantum sensors, our planet keeps a steady rhythm beneath our feet — and we still can't say why.
What else is the Earth doing while we aren't paying attention?
#Earth #Geology #Seismology #Microseism #GulfOfGuinea #ScienceMystery #PlanetaryScience #Unsolved #NaturalPhenomena #EarthScience
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We know that our planet naturally displays many forms of pulsation:
seismic oscillations;
atmospheric resonances;
geomagnetic variations;
ocean–atmosphere coupling;
global pressure waves.
The roughly 26-second signal has been studied for decades and appears to be linked to natural geophysical processes rather than a biological heartbeat.
What is truly fascinating is this:
Earth is not an inert ball of rock.
It is an extraordinarily complex oscillatory system where the atmosphere, oceans, deep interior, and magnetic field continuously interact.
Before claiming that Earth is "alive," we first need to fully understand the physical mechanisms behind these oscillations.
#Earth #Geophysics #Seismology #Oscillations #PlanetaryScience #Physics #NMSI #EarthSystem #Science #Geology
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Congrats to researchers at @NJU1902 on a new exoplanet study using data from LAMOST, Gaia and Kepler.
🌍 Super-Earths show signs of a turbulent past shaped by collisions and stellar tides.
🪐 Mini-Neptunes appear to have evolved in calmer systems shaped by gentle gravitational interactions.
🔭 Different worlds. Different histories.
#Exoplanets #Astronomy #SpaceScience #LAMOST #GaiaMission #Kepler #PlanetaryScience
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Jun 11
#PPOD: Rare Meteorite 🪨
This #meteorite was found in 2019 in northwest Africa and is officially named NWA 12774. Classified as an angrite, this relatively rare type of meteorite is made from material that formed just a few million years after the solar system began. Usually, angrites come from asteroids; however, analysis of certain crystals in NWA 12774 reveals a high aluminum concentration, indicating formation under intense pressure deep within a larger body. Alongside other results, these characteristics indicate that the parent body was a protoplanet about 1800 kilometers in diameter.
The green inclusions are olivine crystals, which are magnesium-rich.
Credit: Beat Booz via Encyclopedia of Meteorites
#planetaryscience
ALT Large slice of a round meteorite revealing white crystals in a black matrix. Several larger green inclusions can be found near the top and the top right. A comparison cube is on the left, showing the orientations of south (out from the sample) and east (to the left) at the time the meteorite was located.
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How do we study worlds beyond Earth?
Join Dr. Deepak Singh (@iitbombay ) for Session 5 of #PropagationSpaceMonth2026
📅 11 June 2026
📷 7:00 - 09:00 PM IST
propagationinstitute.org/pro… #PlanetaryScience #Astronomy #SpaceScience #SpaceExploration #Mars #Astrophysics
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Meteorites are (usually) gifts from the heavens. They provide unique insights to parts of the solar system that we couldn’t access otherwise - either because it's too expensive, or because the… dlvr.it/TSy8fY #Meteorite #Mars #PlanetaryScience #SolarSystem #Astronomy
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#PPOD: Watching the Aurora From Orbit 🌆
Expedition 52 Flight Engineer Jack Fischer of NASA shared photos and a time-lapse video of a glowing green #aurora seen from his vantage point 250 miles up, aboard the International @Space_Station. This aurora photo was taken on June 26, 2017.
Due to a coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 6th, auroras are possible on June 8th when the particles are expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. If Earth experiences a direct hit, the potentially strong storm could produce mid-latitude auroras in Europe and the USA.
Credit: @NASA
#planetaryscience
ALT A photograph taken from the International Space Station, parts of which can be seen at the top and right of the image, showing a massive, stunning green and red aurora on Earth.
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🌊 Happy #WorldOceansDay! The ocean shapes our weather, our climate, and nearly all life on Earth.
But there's a question the experts can't agree on: where did all this water come from?
Read the story👇
carnegiescience.edu/where-di…
#WorldOceansDay #PlanetaryScience
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#PPOD: A Vast Clay Region on Mars 🌊
Taken by the @HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this view shows the transition between clay units in the Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis regions on #Mars. A new study found that the clay deposits at Oxia Planum, the landing site of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, reached as far as Mawrth Vallis. Stretching roughly 600 km across and rising over a kilometer in altitude, the deposits are vast in scale.
At the boundary between the two main clay-bearing units, scientists have identified a paleosurface: a remnant of an ancient, exposed surface that was heavily cratered and later covered by younger deposits. This paleosurface marks a pause in sedimentation, followed by a shift in water chemistry and mineralogy across both sites. If an ocean did form these clay units, its shorelines would rank among the highest ever theorized for Mars.
Credit: @NASA @NASAJPL @Caltech
#planetaryscience
ALT Image taken of the surface of Mars from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing two different paleo-units running up against each other. The flat unit is lightly cratered. The border is curved and tracks around an outcrop in the middle of the picture. The terrain on the right is rougher. The border may be the edge of an ancient ocean.
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🔭✨ Remembering the Great Astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini on His Birth Anniversary! ✨🔭
Born on 8 June 1625, Giovanni Domenico Cassini transformed our understanding of the Solar System through his remarkable astronomical observations.
🌟 Key Contributions:
🪐 Discovered the famous Cassini Division in Saturn's rings.
🌕 Discovered four moons of Saturn — Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys, and Dione.
🔭 Made important observations of Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun.
📡 Helped improve the accuracy of astronomical measurements and telescopic observations.
His pioneering work laid the foundation for modern planetary astronomy and celestial mechanics. The legendary Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn was named in his honor, continuing his legacy centuries later.
🚀 From observing the skies with early telescopes to inspiring deep-space exploration, Cassini's discoveries continue to guide humanity's quest to understand the universe.
🌌 "The study of the heavens is the study of everything."
#GiovanniDomenicoCassini #Cassini #Astronomy #Astronomer #SpaceScience #Saturn #CassiniDivision #SolarSystem #PlanetaryScience #SpaceExploration #OnThisDay #ScienceHistory #HistoryOfScience #STEM #STEMEducation #AstronomyEducation #ScienceCommunication #Cosmos #Universe #Telescope #SkyWatch #Astrophysics #NASA #ESA #SpaceFacts #ScienceForAll #GUJCOST #CommunityScienceCentre #Navsari #IndiaScience
@NASA @ESA @NASAHubble @NASASolarSystem @CassiniSaturn @ESA_Euclid @ESO @IAU_org @RoyalAstroSoc @PlanetarySociety @UNESCO @VigyanPrasar @MoESGoI @ISRO @INSPACeIND @GUJCOST
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Could Saturn's moon Titan be humanity's next great frontier after the Moon and Mars? That bold question is at the heart of the inaugural "Humans to Titan Summit" taking place June 11 to 12, 2026 in Boulder, Colorado, where engineers, scientists and spaceflight experts will gather to blueprint a crewed mission to this extraordinary world! Titan boasts a thick nitrogen atmosphere, rivers and lakes of liquid methane, water-ice rocks and a surface environment strikingly similar to early Earth, making it one of the most compelling destinations in the solar system for both science and the search for life. With NASA's nuclear-powered Dragonfly octocopter mission set to launch in 2028, the groundwork for eventually sending humans to Titan is already being laid, and experts believe that with the right precursor missions, walking on Saturn's largest moon is a real and achievable long-term goal. 🪐🚀👨🚀🌊🌌✨
#Titan #Saturn #SpaceExploration #HumansToTitan #NASA #Dragonfly #FutureOfSpaceTravel #Astrobiology #PlanetaryScience #BeyondMars
space.com/astronomy/saturn/s…
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@NASA Curious question:
Mercury's days are so long that the terminator moves at only a few km/h. Could a rover simply keep driving along the day-night boundary and enjoy near-Earth temperatures continuously, effectively "living in eternal twilight"?
#Mercury #PlanetaryScience
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#PPOD: Colorful, Chaotic Jupiter 🛰️
@NASAJuno captured this color-enhanced view of #Jupiter’s northern hemisphere during its 61st close flyby of the giant planet on May 12, 2024.
Citizen scientist Gary Eason made this image using raw data from the #JunoCam instrument, applying digital processing techniques to enhance color and clarity. It provides a detailed view of chaotic clouds and cyclonic storms in an area known to scientists as a folded filamentary region. In these regions, the zonal jets that create the familiar banded patterns in Jupiter’s clouds break down, leading to turbulent patterns and cloud structures that rapidly evolve over the course of only a few days.
Credit: @NASA @NASAJPL @Caltech @SwRI #MSSS; Processing: Gary Eason
#planetaryscience
ALT Enhanced color image of a portion of Jupiter's cloud surface, revealing swirling storms and large cells, shown in shades of blue, brown, and cream.
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🚨☄️ BREAKING COMET TRAFFIC MAP: Six Comets Cross the Inner Solar System in One View
Processed by spacetracker.space
A rare orbital snapshot from June 5, 2026 shows a crowded comet scene around the inner solar system: 3I/ATLAS, C/2025 R2 SWAN, C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS, 10P/Tempel 2, 88P/Howell, and 220P/McNaught.
This is not an impact warning. It is something more scientifically interesting: six icy bodies from different origins moving through the same solar arena.
Pillar 1 -The Interstellar Visitor
3I/ATLAS is the rarest object in the frame. NASA identifies it as only the third known interstellar object observed passing through our solar system. It was discovered on July 1, 2025, by ATLAS in Chile, reached perihelion around Oct. 30, 2025, and moved at about 68 km/s near perihelion. It came no closer than about 1.8 AU from Earth, so it was never a threat.
Pillar 2 -The Bright Long-Period Comets
C/2025 R2 SWAN came from a long-period orbit and was discovered in SOHO/SWAN data. It passed perihelion near 0.5 AU from the Sun and made a close-but-safe Earth approach around 0.261 AU / 39 million km in October 2025. NASA’s APOD described its greenish coma and tail, making it one of the visually dramatic recent comets.
Pillar 3 -PANSTARRS, the 2026 Showpiece
C/2025 R3 PANSTARRS became one of the major comet stories of 2026. It reached perihelion around April 19–20, 2026, about 0.499 AU from the Sun, then passed closest to Earth around April 26–27, roughly 70–72 million km away. Reports described a green coma, dust tail, and ion tail, especially during the solar-wind interaction after perihelion.
Pillar 4 -The Heavyweight: 10P/Tempel 2
10P/Tempel 2 is the mass champion of this group. It is a Jupiter-family comet discovered in 1873, returning every 5.36 years. Its 2026 perihelion is on Aug. 2, with closest Earth approach on Aug. 3 at about 0.414 AU. Published modeling gives it a mass of about 3.5 ± 1.5 × 10¹⁴ kg, making it far better constrained than most comets in this screenshot.
Pillar 5 -Howell: The Mission Candidate
88P/Howell is another Jupiter-family comet, discovered in 1981 by Ellen Howell. It reached perihelion on March 18, 2026, at about 1.358 AU from the Sun. Its diameter is listed around 4.4 km, and it has been considered interesting enough for sample-return mission concepts.
Pillar 6 -The Surprise Outburst: 220P/McNaught
The current headline object is 220P/McNaught. It is a Jupiter-family comet approaching perihelion on June 14, 2026, at about 1.56 AU from the Sun. Just before perihelion, observers reported a major outburst: the comet brightened by hundreds to thousands of times, with reports from roughly magnitude 18 to 11 and possibly as bright as 8.2.
The real story: this map shows three comet families in one frame - interstellar, Oort/long-period, and Jupiter-family periodic comets. Some are ancient returners. One is an interstellar escapee. One suddenly erupted. Together they show how active, layered, and alive the solar system really is.
Scientific note: comet masses are difficult to measure. Except for well-studied objects like 10P/Tempel 2, most comet masses remain uncertain because we often see the glowing coma and tail more easily than the hidden nucleus. NASA explains that comets develop comae and tails as solar heating releases gas and dust from icy nuclei.
Extended hashtags
#Comet #Comets #Astronomy #Space #SpaceScience #SolarSystem #3IATLAS #ATLAS #InterstellarObject #SWAN #PANSTARRS #Tempel2 #Howell #McNaught #220PMcNaught #CometOutburst #Astrophotography #Skywatching #PlanetaryScience #NASA #SOHO #JPL #OortCloud #JupiterFamilyComet #SpaceNews #ScienceNews #CosmicDiscovery #SpaceTracker #spacetrackerspace
ALT 🚨☄️ A crowded comet scene is unfolding across the inner Solar System. Visible in this orbital view: 3I/ATLAS, C/2025 R2 (SWAN), C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS), 10P/Tempel 2, 88P/Howell, and 220P/McNaught Big takeaway: 3I/ATLAS = interstellar visitor 10P/Tempel 2 = likely the most massive in this group 220P/McNaught = the surprise outburst comet The rest show how active and crowded comet traffic can get near the Sun This is not an impact warning — it’s a rare scientific snapshot of multiple comet families crossing the same solar system stage at once. #Comet #Comets #Astronomy #Space #SolarSystem #3IATLAS #SWAN #PANSTARRS #Tempel2 #Howell #McNaught #SpaceNews #Skywatching #PlanetaryScience #spacetrackerspace
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Exoplanetary weather watchers find strong evidence of magnetic fields ow.ly/nTFT50Z7qUe @universetoday #exoplanets #astronomy #planetaryscience #science
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#PPOD: AB Aurigae's Protoplanetary Disc 🌀
This image, taken with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a disc of material around the young star AB Aurigae, where planets might be forming. Similar observations over four years show the disc rotating around the star. The image to the right has been processed to highlight certain features of the disc, such as spiral arms and radial shadows cast by dense clumps of material.
Credit: @ESO / A. Boccaletti et al.
#planetaryscience
ALT Side-by-side comparison images of the protoplanetary disk around the star AB Aurigae. The star is blacked out in both images. The image on the left shows swirling clouds of gas and dust, brightening close to the star. The image on the right is over-processed to show more distinct lines within the spiral formation.
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Jun 4
NASA ends decade-long Mars mission after spacecraft loss yespunjab.com/?p=261041
#NASA #MAVEN #Mars #SpaceMission #SpaceExploration #PlanetaryScience #MarsMission #Astronomy
@NASA
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#PPOD: Batagaika Crater 🧊
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features the Batagaika Crater in #Siberia. This is the biggest permafrost crater in the world, caused by melting permafrost and also known as a ‘mega-slump’.
From above, the collapsed terrain resembles a tadpole or a stingray, with near-symmetrical ‘fins’ and a ‘tail’ pointing northeast. The crater – seen in the lower-right-hand side of this image – is roughly 100 m deep and 1 km long but is growing at a rate of around 30 m a year. According to scientists, this rapid expansion began a few decades ago and is the result of deforestation and warmer temperatures. These conditions cause the ice in the crater to melt, then evaporate or drain away, leaving residual sediments that subside.
Credit: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by @ESA
#planetaryscience
ALT Satellite image of a region in Siberia, Russia, that includes the Batagaika Crater (lower right), which is manta-ray-shaped. To the northeast, a small hill overlooks the crater. The region is covered in greenery. The small village of Batagay is in the top middle, with the winding Yana River running from the lower left to above the town.
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