Space Exploration News

An illustration showing how a sliver of cometary building block material was swallowed by an asteroid and preserved inside a meteorite. Image credit: Larry Nittler / NASA.

Scientists Find Cometary Fragment in Primitive Asteroidal Meteorite

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

A cometary building block has been discovered inside the LaPaz Icefield (LAP) 02342, a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite found in Antarctica in the 2000s. An...

An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Titan’s Lakes are Surprisingly Deep, Have Methane-Dominated Composition, Says Cassini Team

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

Radar data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have revealed that small lakes in the northern hemisphere of Saturn’s hazy moon Titan are surprisingly deep...

Now retired twin astronauts, Scott (right) and Mark (left) Kelly, are subjects of NASA’s Twins Study. Image credit: Derek Storm, www.derekstorm.com.

NASA’s Twins Study Provides Biomolecular View into How Human Body Responds to Spaceflight

Apr 12, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Twins Study brought ten teams of researchers from around the country together to observe what physiological, molecular and cognitive changes could...

As a metallic asteroid such as Psyche cooled and solidified, iron volcanoes may have erupted onto its surface. Image credit: Elena Hartley.

Ferrovolcanism: Liquid Iron-Spewing Volcanoes Erupted on Metallic Asteroids, Scientists Say

Apr 9, 2019 by News Staff

Metallic asteroids are the cooled cores of disrupted planetesimals. They originated early in the history of our Solar System when planets were beginning...

Colorful clouds formed by the release of vapors from the two AZURE rockets allow scientists to measure auroral winds. Image credit: Lee Wingfield / NASA.

NASA Launches Two Sounding Rockets to Study Auroral Winds: AZURE Mission

Apr 9, 2019 by News Staff

From the ground, the dance of the northern lights, or aurora borealis, can look peaceful. But those shimmering sheets of colored lights are the product...

Phobos transits the Sun’s disk, as seen by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on March 26, 2019. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Martian Moons Phobos and Deimos Eclipse the Sun

Apr 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has captured several stunning videos of solar eclipses from the surface of the Red Planet. Phobos transits the Sun’s disk,...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Makes Second Close Approach to Sun

Apr 8, 2019 by News Staff

On April 4, 2019, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved its second perihelion (close approach) of the Sun and flew within 15 million miles (24 million km)...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hungarian Researchers Claim to See Biosignatures in Martian Meteorite

Apr 4, 2019 by Natali Anderson

ALH-77005, a Martian rock found in Antarctica, contains numerous mineralized ‘biosignatures,’ including coccoidal, filamentous structures and organic...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Methane on Mars: New Discovery or Just Lot of Hot Air?

Apr 3, 2019 by The Conversation

The discovery of life on Mars would get pretty much everyone excited. But the scientists hunting for it would probably be happy no matter what the outcome...

A photo of a preserved river channel on Mars with color overlaid to show different elevations (blue is low, yellow is high). Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona / University of Chicago.

Significant River Runoff Persisted on Mars for More Than One Billion Years

Apr 2, 2019 by News Staff

Mars is dry today, but numerous ancient rivers are found across the planet’s surface and their existence is a challenge to models of planetary climate...

During super-close flybys of Saturn’s rings, Cassini inspected the mini-moons Pan and Daphnis in the A ring; Atlas at the edge of the A ring; Pandora at the edge of the F ring; and Epimetheus, which is bathed in material that fans out from the moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA-JPL / Caltech.

Saturn’s Rings Coat Its Small Inner Moons, Cassini Researchers Say

Mar 29, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s main ring system is associated with a set of moons (Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Pandora, and Epimetheus) that are either embedded within it, or interact...

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.

Asteroid Ryugu: First Science Results from JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 Mission

Mar 22, 2019 by News Staff

In June 2018, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spacecraft and sample return mission Hayabsua-2 arrived at the near-Earth asteroid 162173...

Wang et al compared new protosolar elemental abundances with recent estimates of bulk Earth composition. Image credit: Orlando PIRO4D.

Earth is Devolatilized Version of Sun, Planetary Researchers Say

Mar 22, 2019 by News Staff

A team of planetary scientists at the Australian National University found that our planet is made of the same elements as the Sun but has less of the...

This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 19 was created by combining two images taken on board NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / Goddard / University of Arizona / Lockheed Martin.

OSIRIS-REx Spots Particle Plumes Erupting on Asteroid Bennu

Mar 21, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission made the first-ever close-up observations...

This composite picture combines nine individual images taken with New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), each with an exposure time of 0.025 seconds, just 6 ½ minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Ultima Thule. The image was taken at 12:26 a.m. EST (5:26 a.m. GMT) on January 1, 2019, when the spacecraft was 4,109 miles (6,628 km) from Ultima Thule and 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion km) from Earth. The angle between the spacecraft, Ultima Thule and the Sun -- known as the ‘phase angle’ - was 33 degrees. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Ultima Thule: Revealing First Primordial Planetesimal

Mar 20, 2019 by News Staff

Analyzing the data NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been sending home since the flyby of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, the mission team is learning...

The stress of spaceflight gives viruses a holiday from immune surveillance, putting future deep-space missions in jeopardy. Image credit: NASA.

Dormant Herpes Viruses Reactivate in Astronauts During Spaceflight, New Study Shows

Mar 19, 2019 by News Staff

Latent herpes viruses such as herpes-simplex-1 (HSV-1), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), varicella-zoster virus (VZV), and cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivate in...

This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 images collected on December 2, 2018 by OSIRIS-REx’s PolyCam instrument from a range of 15 miles (24 km). Image credit: NASA / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / University of Arizona.

Asteroid Bennu is Spinning Faster over Time, New Study Shows

Mar 14, 2019 by News Staff

Bennu — the target of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft...

These two thumbnail images are the final images Opportunity took on Mars as a dust storm darkened the sky. The left Pancam image has more wavy gradations. In the right Pancam image, the Sun appears as the larger whitish feature in the middle of the frame. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell / ASU.

NASA Releases Opportunity Rover’s Final Photos of Mars

Mar 14, 2019 by News Staff

After eight months of effort and sending more than a thousand commands in an attempt to restore contact with the Mars rover Opportunity, NASA declared...

A view of the Moon’s south pole showing where reflectance and temperature data indicate the possible presence of surface water ice. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Detects Migrating Water on Moon

Mar 13, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from the LAMP (Lyman Alpha Mapping Project) instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary researchers have observed water...