Space Exploration News

Early, Energetic Collisions Could Have Fueled Venus Volcanism: Study

Marchi et al. compared the early impact history of Venus and Earth, determining that Venus experienced higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.
Jul 20, 2023 by News Staff

New research shows that long-lived volcanism, driven by early, energetic collisions on Venus, offers an explanation of its young surface age with stagnant-lid tectonics. This volcanic activity is fuelled by a superheated core, resulting in vigorous internal melting regardless of initial conditions. Marchi et al. compared the early impact history of Venus and Earth, determining that Venus experienced higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core....

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An artist’s representation of BepiColombo flying through precipitating electrons that can trigger X-ray auroras on the surface of Mercury. Image credit: Thibaut Roger / Europlanet.

Auroral Mechanisms May Be Universal throughout Our Solar System

Jul 18, 2023 by News Staff

An analysis of data obtained during the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft’s first Mercury flyby reveals that Mercury’s southern magnetosphere aurorae...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Finds Diverse Organic Molecules in Jezero Crater

Jul 12, 2023 by News Staff

The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover has...

Tiny meteoritic spherules from the most likely path of IM1. Image credit: Avi Loeb, Harvard University / Galileo Project.

Tiny Fragments of Interstellar Meteor May Have Been Found in Pacific Ocean

Jul 10, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Harvard University’s Professor Avi Loeb and colleagues have discovered at least 50 tiny spherical iron fragments near the fireball path of the first...

This illustration shows the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex (CBVC) on the Moon’s far side and the boxed area indicated a large granite zone, which could not be picked up by topography. Image credit: Siegler et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06183-5.

Planetary Scientists Find Large Granite Formation on Moon’s Far Side

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

The 50-km-diameter granitic system discovered below the far side feature known as Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex likely was formed from the cooling...

This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Terra Sirenum region on Mars and its gullies. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Martian Gullies Could Have Been Formed by On-And-Off Periods of Liquid Meltwater

Jul 4, 2023 by News Staff

Some steep slopes on Mars have gullies with morphologies suggesting that they were formed by a liquid. However, the planet’s current climate is not conducive...

ESA’s Euclid spacecraft will orbit the second Lagrange point (L2), 1.5 million km from Earth in the opposite direction to the Sun. L2 is an equilibrium point of the Sun-Earth system that follows Earth around the Sun. In its orbit at L2, Euclid’s sunshield can always block the light from the Sun, Earth and Moon while pointing its telescope towards deep space, ensuring a high level of stability for its instruments. At L2, Euclid joins ESA’s Gaia mission and the ESA/NASA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, which are also orbiting around this equilibrium point, each following well separated trajectories. Image credit: ESA.

ESA’s Euclid Mission Launches to Explore Dark Matter and Energy

Jul 3, 2023 by News Staff

The Euclid spacecraft, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:12...

This image of Mars was taken with the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument onboard NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft in July 2022. Image credit: NASA / LASP / CU Boulder.

MAVEN Observes Mars in Ultraviolet Light

Jun 22, 2023 by News Staff

Planetary scientists using the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument onboard NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

New Research Sheds More Light on Evolution of Europa’s Interior

Jun 19, 2023 by News Staff

Many planetary scientists studying Jupiter’s moon Europa assumed that it formed with a metallic core during or shortly after accretion. New research...

Saturn’s moon Enceladus with a plume. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Kevin M. Gill.

Phosphorus, Rare Building Block for Life, Discovered at Enceladus

Jun 15, 2023 by News Staff

Phosphorus has not previously been detected in oceans beyond those on Earth and this discovery provides a promising step forward in our understanding of...

An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA.

Study: Plate Tectonics is not a Requirement for Life to Originate on Earth-Like Planet

Jun 15, 2023 by News Staff

Plate tectonics is a fundamental factor in the sustained habitability of Earth, but its time of onset is unknown, with ages ranging from the Hadean to...

Parker Solar Probe has flown through the solar corona and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Parker Solar Probe Identifies Mechanism Driving Fast Solar Wind

Jun 12, 2023 by News Staff

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has flown close enough to the Sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the solar...

Strong evidence suggesting that frying in space is possible. Image credit: Lioumbas et al., doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2022.112249.

Is Frying Possible in Space?

Jun 12, 2023 by Natali Anderson

French fries are a very popular food commodity across many cultural backgrounds on Earth and as such they may be appreciated by long-term space travelers....

Images from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) show a water vapor plume jetting from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / G. Villanueva, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Observes Enceladus’ Water Vapor Plume

Jun 2, 2023 by News Staff

As Enceladus orbits rapidly around Saturn with a period of only 1.37 Earth days, the ejected water vapor is spread along and around its orbit, forming...

This image from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera shows the globe of Mars set against a dark background. The disk of the planet features yellow, orange, blue and green patches, all with an overall muted grey hue, representing the varying composition of the surface. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / G. Michael / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Watch First-Ever Livestream from Mars

Jun 2, 2023 by News Staff

On June 2, 2023, to celebrate the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, you’ll have the chance to get as close as it’s currently possible get to a...

An artist’s impression of the Hadean Earth: huge, impact-generated lava lakes coexisted with surface liquid water, under a thick greenhouse atmosphere sustained by lava outgassing. Image credit: Simone Marchi & Dan Durda, Southwest Research Institute.

Iron-Rich Meteoritic and Volcanic Particles May Have Promoted Origin of Life Reactions on Early Earth

May 26, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Precursors of the molecules needed for the origin of life may have been generated by chemical reactions promoted by meteoritic and volcanic particles approximately...

An UAP from a declassified video captured by a U.S. Navy aircraft. Image credit: U.S. Navy.

Almost One-Fifth of Academic Survey Respondents Witnessed Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Study

May 23, 2023 by News Staff

Recently, former and current government officials, legislators, and faculty in the United States have called for research on what their government terms...

This Hubble image heralds the start of Saturn’s ‘spoke season’ with the appearance of two smudgy spokes in the B ring, on the left in the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Saturn’s Rings are No More Than Few Hundred Million Years Old, Scientists Say

May 16, 2023 by News Staff

Saturn’s ring system may well have formed when dinosaurs were still walking on the Earth, and will last only another few hundred million years at most,...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows the southern flanks of Ascraeus Mons, the second-tallest volcano on Mars. This image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on January 15, 2023. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Sees Fissured Flanks of Mars’ Second-Tallest Volcano

May 15, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Ascraeus Mons is the northernmost and tallest of three prominent volcanoes found in the Tharsis region of Mars, a volcanic plateau in the planet’s western...

Castillo-Rogez et al. show that there likely is an ocean layer in four of Uranus’ major moons: Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon; salty -- or briny -- oceans lie under the ice and atop layers of water-rich rock and dry rock; Miranda is too small to retain enough heat for an ocean layer. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Four Uranian Moons Host Subsurface Oceans, New Research Suggests

May 5, 2023 by News Staff

The five large moons of Uranus — Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon — are important targets for future spacecraft missions. Studying...

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