Articles by James Romero

This mosaic of images from the MDIS Narrow Angle Camera on NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft shows the impact crater Hokusai, located on Mercury at a latitude of 58°N. The crater has an impressive system of rays, which extend as much as a thousand kilometers (more than 600 miles) across the planet and are the longest that have yet been identified on Mercury. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The Great Wave that Brought Water to Mercury

Nov 1, 2018 by James Romero

The impact that formed Mercury’s spectacular 100-km (62-mile) wide Hokusai crater, named after the famous Japanese artist, who created the Great Wave...

An artist’s impression of a habitable exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA.

Stellar Flares: Life Givers or Sterilizers of Worlds?

Aug 15, 2018 by James Romero

Have Carl Sagan and astrobiologists been too hard on stellar flares? A new study imagines an alternative scenario where they power photosynthesis around...

An artist’s impression of an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting an M-dwarf star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

We May Miss Life-Hosting Exoplanets If We Only Look for Their Oxygen

Jun 8, 2018 by James Romero

There could be a flaw in the search for atmospheric oxygen as a signature of life around most of our nearby exoplanets. A team from the University of Washington...

Mars is kept company by two cratered moons -- an inner moon named Phobos and an outer moon named Deimos. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Malin Space Science Systems / Texas A&M University.

Tiny Martian Moons Hint at Red Planet’s Adolescent Rejection

Feb 13, 2018 by James Romero

Like a teenage diary you can’t throw away, Mars might carry a reminder of its difficult formative years in its tiny moons. A paper published by the Royal...

This artist’s painting of the south polar region of Enceladus shows massive jets of water ice being blasted into space. Image credit: Karl Kofoed / NASA.

Saturn Moons Stained by Enceladus’ ‘Ingredients for Life’

Oct 25, 2017 by James Romero

Weathered organic material once dissolved in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean is coating Saturn’s inner moons, explaining surprising variations in their...

Hypothetical Planet 9. Image credit: R. Hurt, IPAC / Caltech.

Planet 9, Probably Not a Scooped Up Exoplanet

Sep 14, 2017 by James Romero

Suggestions that the hypothesized Planet 9 formed outside our solar system, or was even stolen from a rival solar system, have been dealt a blow by investigations...

Oxo Crater is the second-brightest feature on Ceres. Only Occator’s central area is brighter. Oxo lies near the 0 degree meridian that defines the edge of many Ceres maps, making this small feature easy to overlook. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image in its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of 385 km from the surface of Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI.

Crater Slope Avalanches Reveal Ceres’ Surface Water Ice

Aug 25, 2017 by James Romero

Surface water ice found within a brilliantly bright crater on the dwarf planet Ceres is being exposed by avalanches reprocessing impact deposits in just...

Artist’s conception of the dust and gas surrounding a newly formed planetary system. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Water Explained by Gas Giant Gluttony

Jul 19, 2017 by James Romero

Water on Earth, Mars and everywhere within the inner Solar System can be traced back to the rapid waist-expanding growth of Jupiter and Saturn, which knocked...

An illustration of an asteroid on its way to ancient Mars. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / Nathan Owen-Price / Sci.News.

Mars’ Two-Faces and Moons Could Result from an Early Cataclysmic Impact

Jul 4, 2017 by James Romero

Mars experienced a single colossal impact during its first 130 million years, the equivalent to the largest body in the today’s asteroid belt slamming...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Could Pluto’s Orbital Wobbles Create Its Mysterious Glacial Crazy-Paving?

Jun 6, 2017 by James Romero

Strange fields of polygons seen during New Horizons’ visit to Pluto could be explained by million year variations in the dwarf planet’s orbit caused...

According Lehmer et al, moons around migrant hot Jupiters could hold onto atmospheres for billions of years. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Melting Moons Could Hold on to Atmospheres and Surface Water Oceans for Billions of Years

May 3, 2017 by James Romero

Exomoons around migrant hot Jupiters could hold onto life-giving atmospheres and maintain surface oceans for billions and billions of years. This is the...

This artist’s impression displays TRAPPIST-1 and its planets reflected in a surface. Image credit: NASA / R. Hurt / T. Pyle.

TRAPPIST-1 System Ideal for Planet-Hopping Life?

Mar 24, 2017 by James Romero

Exoplanet hunters struck gold earlier this year with the discovery of seven rocky bodies orbiting around dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, a find that both raised...

Blue skies on Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

The Secrets of Pluto’s Thin Blue Line

Mar 3, 2017 by James Romero

“Like a summer’s evening here on Earth just after sunset. A faint blue glow follows the Sun below the horizon — the only bit of color within...

This artist’s concept depicts the early Martian environment (right) -- believed to contain liquid water and a thicker atmosphere -- versus the cold, dry environment seen at Mars today (left). Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Did Ancient Martian Volcanism Provide the Sunblock to Get Life Going?

Feb 8, 2017 by James Romero

Intense volcanism early in Mars history could have aided the emergence of life on the red planet through filtering out harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation...

A vast alluvial fan in the XinJiang province of China. The right side is the active part of the fan, and appears blue from water currently flowing in the many small streams. The image was acquired on May 2, 2002. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / METI / ERSDAC / JAROS / US-Japan ASTER Science Team.

Have We Seen Evidence of Titan’s Catastrophic Methane Downpours?

Jan 9, 2017 by James Romero

Attempts to investigate the origin of giant wedge-shaped sedimentary structures on Saturn’s moon Titan using analogues in Death Valley, California has...

Hubble’s view of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA.

Teasing Out the Secrets beneath Jupiter’s Cloud Tops

Dec 17, 2016 by James Romero

As NASA’s Juno probe makes its closest flyby of the gas giant, new research from France’s space agency could help make more sense of the data it sends...

Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ice-Quake Echoes Could Lift Lid on Oceans within Pluto and Europa

Nov 22, 2016 by James Romero

Measuring outer solar system ice-quakes could identify if Europa’s subsurface ocean is an oxygen-rich, leading candidates for life, or uncover the origin...

This image is a view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope taken on March 22, 2004. Camera exposures in four filters (blue, blue-green, green and red) were combined to form the Hubble image and render colors similar to what the eye would see through a telescope focused on Saturn. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Erich Karkoschka, University of Arizona.

Saturn’s Rings Could Have Formed when Dinosaurs Walked the Earth

Nov 2, 2016 by James Romero

Saturn’s rings are billions of years younger than we thought, say Cornell University researchers analyzing an almost forgotten set of data, collected...

This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight. At top right is NWA 7034. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of New Mexico / Sci-News.com.

New Secrets Revealed about Ancient Mars from ‘Black Beauty’ Meteorite

Oct 20, 2016 by James Romero

New analysis of the most famous Martian meteorite ever recovered has changed our understanding of the early volcanic history and evolution of the Red Planet....

The main idea behind the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative is to send light-propelled nanocrafts to the Alpha Centauri system within the next generation. Image credit: Breakthrough Initiatives.

New Light Sail Proposed to Ride a Laser Beam to the Stars

Oct 10, 2016 by James Romero

A laser beam-riding sail in the shape of a giant trapped ping pong ball could carry the first manmade object across interstellar space towards the recently-discovered...