Space Exploration News

This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express on November 8, 2020, during orbit 21,305. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Spots Festive Silhouettes near Martian South Pole

Dec 18, 2020 by News Staff

The wings of an angelic figure, complete with halo, can be seen sweeping up and off the top of the frame in a new image from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft,...

Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon’s south pole and creating Saturn’s mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. Tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL / SSI / Cassini Imaging Team.

Enceladus’ Subsurface Ocean Has Various Energy Sources for Microbial Life, Study Suggests

Dec 17, 2020 by News Staff

In a study published this month in the journal Icarus, planetary researchers from the United States and Germany modeled chemical processes in the subsurface...

Ankylosaurus magniventris, a large armored dinosaur species, witnesses the impact of an asteroid, falling on the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago. Image credit: Fabio Manucci.

Non-Marine Mass Extinctions Occur with Periodicity of 27.5 Million Years: Study

Dec 11, 2020 by News Staff

Non-marine animals (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have apparently experienced at least 10 distinct episodes of intensified extinctions over...

Rendering of Gale Lake some 3.5 billion years ago, when Mars was warmer and much wetter. Image credit: Evan Williams / NASA / Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HIRISE project.

Martian Brines May Not Be as Widespread as Previously Thought

Dec 11, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study published in the Planetary Science Journal, a team of U.S. scientists combined experimentally verified data on brine evaporation rates along...

A whimsical view of the planets of our Solar System and the missions sent from Earth to explore them. Image credit: Jenny Mottar / NASA.

Astronomers Discover New ‘Celestial Autobahn’ in Solar System

Dec 9, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers from Serbia and the United States has discovered a new superhighway network to travel through our Solar System much...

A fragment of the Tagish Lake meteorite. Image credit: Mike Zolensky, NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Scientists Find Precursor of Prebiotic Chemistry in Three Meteorites

Dec 8, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has detected a polyheterocyclic organic molecule called hexamethylenetetramine in three carbonaceous meteorites: Murchison,...

Hayabusa-2’s container with material from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu and its parachute in South Australia. Image credit: JAXA.

Hayabusa-2 Returns Samples of Asteroid Ryugu to Earth

Dec 7, 2020 by News Staff

On December 6, 2020, JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft delivered a landing capsule with samples of material collected from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid...

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.

Study: Early Mars Likely Had Energy Source for Underground Life

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Science Advances, the Martian subsurface would have been the most habitable region for simple life forms...

This illustration shows Jezero Crater -- the landing site of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover -- as it may have looked billions of years ago on Mars, when it was a lake. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Researchers Develop Hydrogen and Oxygen Harvesting System for Use on Mars

Dec 1, 2020 by News Staff

The active Martian water cycle, i.e., the presence of shallow water and soluble perchlorate salts in the Martian soil, enables the production of hydrogen...

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

Curiosity Finds Deposits from Megafloods in Martian Crater

Nov 23, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found a series of symmetrical, 10-m- (33-foot-) high gravel ridges — sedimentologic evidence of ancient giant floods...

This artist’s concept depicts the dry environment seen at Mars today versus the early Martian environment. Image credit: Simon Fraser University.

Global and Regional Dust Storms Cause Mars to Lose Water

Nov 13, 2020 by News Staff

Mars was once a wet planet, but it has lost most of its water through reactions that produce hydrogen. In standard models, molecular hydrogen produced...

These illustrations show three versions of a rocky planet with different amounts of internal heating from radioactive elements. The middle planet is Earth-like, with plate tectonics and an internal dynamo generating a magnetic field. The top planet, with more radiogenic heating, has extreme volcanism but no dynamo or magnetic field. The bottom planet, with less radiogenic heating, is geologically ‘dead,’ with no volcanism. Image credit: Melissa Weiss.

Internal Heating from Radioactive Elements May Be Crucial to Planet Habitability, Study Says

Nov 12, 2020 by News Staff

The thermal evolution of rocky planets depends on the heat input from three long-lived radiogenic elements: potassium, thorium, and uranium. Concentrations...

This artist’s conception of Europa shows a hypothesized cryovolcanic eruption, in which briny water from within the icy shell blasts into space. Image credit: Justice Blaine Wainwright.

Europa’s Plumes May Originate from Near-Surface Brine Reservoirs, Not Global Ocean

Nov 11, 2020 by News Staff

Europa, the sixth of Jupiter’s moons and the fourth largest, has a subsurface ocean covered by an icy shell. Despite evidence for plumes on the icy moon,...

Water Present on All Rocky Planets, Martian Meteorite Study Suggests

Nov 10, 2020 by News Staff

Water may emerge in connection with the formation of terrestrial planets, according to a new analysis of a Martian meteorite called North West Africa (NWA)...

This illustration of Jupiter’s moon Europa shows how its icy surface may glow on its nightside. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Europa’s Icy Surface Glows in the Dark, New Study Suggests

Nov 10, 2020 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is bombarded by a constant and intense blast of radiation from the gas giant. Different salty compounds on the moon’s surface...

This colorized radar image, taken by NASA’s Cassini orbiter on February 15, 2005, shows a 60-km (37-mile) wide crater on Titan. The appearance of the crater and the extremely bright (hence rough) blanket of material surrounding it is indicative of an origin by impact, in which a hypervelocity comet or asteroid, in this case, roughly 5-10 km (3-6 miles) in size, slammed into the surface of the moon. The bright surrounding blanket is debris, or ejecta, thrown out of the crater. The asymmetric appearance of this ejecta blanket could be an effect of atmospheric winds associated with the impact itself. Although clearly formed by impact, the feature lacks a central peak, suggesting that it has been eroded or otherwise modified after formation. Rainfall, wind erosion, and softening of the solid material in which the crater formed are all possible processes that might have altered this impact feature. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASI.

Cassini Finds Organics and Water Ice in Titan’s Impact Craters

Nov 6, 2020 by News Staff

Using the spectral data collected by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) onboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, a team of researchers has...

This SEM image shows crystals of donwilhelmsite in Oued Awlitis 001. Image credit: Ansgar Greshake, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

New Mineral Discovered in Lunar Meteorite: Donwilhelmsite

Nov 5, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers in Europe has identified a new high-pressure mineral in a lunar meteorite called Oued Awlitis 001. Fragments of Oued Awlitis 001....

This illustration of NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft in interplanetary space was generated using imagery from NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System. The image is from the mission’s midway point between Earth and Mars. Visible in the graphic are the solar panels on the cruise stage surrounding the top of the aeroshell. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Mars 2020 Spacecraft is Midway to Red Planet, NASA Says

Nov 5, 2020 by News Staff

On October 27, 2020, at 4:40 EDT (1:40 p.m. PDT), NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft, which includes the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter, reached...

This image shows a triple crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. The largest crater measures 45 km across, and the smallest 28 km. There are also signs of other sizeable craters, such as the round patches of sunken surface seen to the top right and bottom left. This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on August 6, 2020. This image was created using data from the nadir and color channels of the HRSC. The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. North is to the right. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Spots Triple Crater on Red Planet

Nov 3, 2020 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has spotted three overlapping craters in Noachis Terra, an extensive landmass in the southern hemisphere of Mars. This image...