Space Exploration News

Bonsor et al. present distinct observational evidence from white dwarf planetary systems for planetesimal formation occurring during the first few hundred thousand years after cloud collapse in exoplanetary systems. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Stars and Building Blocks of Their Planets ‘Grow Up’ Together, New Study Suggests

Nov 15, 2022 by News Staff

The timing and locations of formation of planetesimals — the building blocks of planets — are crucial to the understanding of planet formation....

This image of the asteroid Ryugu was captured by the Optical Navigation Camera - Telescopic (ONC-T) on JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on June 26, 2018, from a distance of 13.7 miles (22 km). Image credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / Aizu University / AIST.

Researchers Find Extraterrestrial Noble Gases in Asteroid Ryugu Sample

Nov 3, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

The sample of material delivered to our planet from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu contained a mixture of extraterrestrial (helium and neon) and terrestrial...

This image, taken by Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on April 5, 2022, shows the Terra Sirenum region on Mars. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Sees Craters and Fractures in Terra Sirenum

Oct 31, 2022 by News Staff

This new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows a diverse region southeast of the Pickering crater...

Boulder-size blocks of water ice can be seen around the rim of an impact crater in the Amazonis Planitia regionon Mars, as viewed by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Meteoroid Impact on Mars Excavated Large Chunks of Water Ice, Planetary Scientists Say

Oct 28, 2022 by News Staff

On December 24, 2021, NASA’s InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake with a distinct signature rippling across the surface of Mars. In a pair...

Benjamin Cardenas & Michael Lamb show definitive evidence of a roughly 3.5-billion-year-old shoreline with substantial sedimentary accumulation, at least 900 m thick, that covered hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. Image credit: Benjamin Cardenas / Penn State.

New Evidence for Northern Ocean on Early Mars

Oct 28, 2022 by News Staff

A major question in Mars history is whether the planet had an ocean in its northern hemisphere. New research provides evidence for a northern ocean or...

This map shows the size and shape of the ozone hole over the South Pole on October 5, 2022, when it reached its single-day maximum extent for the year. Image credit: Joshua Stevens / NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Antarctic Ozone Hole Continues to Shrink, Researchers Say

Oct 27, 2022 by News Staff

The annual ozone hole over the South Pole reached an average area of 23.2 million km2 (8.9 million square miles) between September 7 and October 13, 2022,...

This image of the Moon was taken by the Lucy LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) aboard NASA’s Lucy spacecraft on October 16, 2022, between 7.5 and 8 hours after it flew by the Earth for the first gravity assist. Image credit: NASA / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / SwRI / JHU-APL / Tod R. Lauer, NOIRLab.

Lucy Captures Stunning New Images of the Moon

Oct 27, 2022 by News Staff

The Lucy LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) aboard NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured new close-ups of the lunar surface on October 16, 2022,...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Chances of Finding Ancient Bacteria on Mars are Better than Previously Expected: Study

Oct 27, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Radiation resistance of microbes is a key parameter in considering survivability of microbes over geologic times on the frigid, arid surface of Mars that...

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

NASA Kicks Off Study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Oct 25, 2022 by News Staff

Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), popularly known as UFOs, are of interest for both national security and air safety and NASA’s independent study...

At the top right of the image, there are arrows indicating the direction of impact by NASA’s DART spacecraft. The direction of impact arrow points in the 10 o’clock direction. The ‘to Sun’ arrow points in the 8 o’clock direction. At the bottom right are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points in the directly straight up. The east arrow points to the left in the 9 o’clock direction. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Jian-Yang Li, PSI / Joseph DePasquale.

Asteroid Moonlet Dimorphos Develops Two Tails after DART Impact

Oct 23, 2022 by News Staff

A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows two tails of dust ejected from the 160-m-wide asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits a larger,...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Cassini Sheds New Light on Saturn’s Rings

Oct 19, 2022 by News Staff

The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph instrument onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft observed 41 solar occultations by Saturn’s rings. Now, planetary...

An artist’s conception of Haumea, its moons Hi’iaka and Namaka, and its ring system; the moons are much more distant than depicted here. Image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi.

New Research Sheds More Light on Formation and Evolution of Dwarf Planet Haumea

Oct 18, 2022 by News Staff

The dwarf planet Haumea resides in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of the outermost planet Neptune. An artist’s conception of Haumea, its moons Hi’iaka...

Deimos passing in front of Jupiter and its Galilean moons. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / K.-D. Matz.

Mars Express Observes Rare Celestial Alignments in Solar System

Oct 14, 2022 by News Staff

New videos captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter show the rare moment of the Martian moon Deimos passing...

Review of the mechanisms proposed in the literature to explain the emplacement of liquid reservoirs invoked to correspond to a variety of geological features at Europa’s surface. Image credit: Lesage et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ac75bf.

Shallow Lakes in Europa’s Crust Could Erupt, Planetary Scientists Say

Oct 13, 2022 by News Staff

In the search for life beyond Earth, subsurface bodies of water in the outer Solar System are some of the most important targets. That’s why NASA and...

This image from ASI’s LICIACube satellite shows the plumes of ejecta streaming from Dimorphos after DART made impact with it on September 26, 2022. Each rectangle represents a different level of contrast in order to better see fine structure in the plumes. By studying these streams of material, we will be able to learn more about the asteroid and the impact process. Image credit: ASI / NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

DART’s Impact Altered Orbit of Dimorphos, NASA Says

Oct 12, 2022 by News Staff

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into Dimorphos, a moonlet of the asteroid Didymos. According...

Second Ever Interstellar Meteor Discovered

Oct 10, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

Both the first and second interstellar meteors, IM1 and IM2, are outliers in material strength and may have originated in supernova explosions, according...

The young Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 m deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have pooled to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’s northern hemisphere, and in some regions reaching depths greater than 1.6 km. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org.

Mars was Habitable for Methanogenic Microorganisms 3.7 Billion Years Ago, Study Suggests

Oct 10, 2022 by News Staff

The subsurface of Mars during the Noachian period was likely to have been habitable for microorganisms that feed on hydrogen and produce methane, according...

These images shows Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa with Jupiter in the background. Image credit: ESO / King & Fletcher / NASA / ESA / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / OPAL Team.

SPHERE Helps Determine Surface Compositions of Europa and Ganymede

Oct 10, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have imaged Jupiter’s...

This view of Europa was captured by JunoCam during Juno’s close flyby on September 29, 2022. Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed the view to create this image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Björn Jónsson / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Incredible New Images of Europa Released by NASA

Oct 7, 2022 by News Staff

These images of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa were taken by the JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during a close approach on September 29,...