Space Exploration News

First light data from Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument suite: the right side of this image -- from WISPR’s inner telescope -- has a 40-degree field of view, with its right edge 58.5 degrees from the Sun’s center; the bright object slightly to the right of the image's center is Jupiter; the left side of the image is from WISPR’s outer telescope, which has a 58-degree field of view and extends to about 160 degrees from the Sun; it shows the Milky Way, looking at the Galactic center; there is a parallax of about 13 degrees in the apparent position of the Sun as viewed from Earth and from Parker Solar Probe. Image credit: NASA / Naval Research Laboratory / Parker Solar Probe.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Gathers First Data

Sep 21, 2018 by News Staff

One month after its successful launch, Parker Solar Probe — a NASA’s robotic spacecraft designed to explore the Sun’s atmosphere — has...

A ‘brown barge’ cyclone in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this image using data from the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin M. Gill.

NASA’s Juno Orbiter Spots ‘Brown Barge’ Cloud on Jupiter

Sep 19, 2018 by News Staff

A new image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft shows a long, brown oval known as a ‘brown barge’ in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. A ‘brown barge’...

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.

Researchers Say the Reason Pluto Lost Its Planet Status is Not Valid

Sep 10, 2018 by News Staff

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a definition of a planet that required it to clear its orbit, or in other words, be the...

The Reiner Gamma formation is a well known lunar swirl region, due to its nearside location. Swirls are described by curving, diffuse bright patterns, which are interspersed with darker lanes. These anomalous albedo patterns are associated with local magnetic anomalies of varying intensities; swirl complexes are often extensive and may stretch across thousands of kilometers, well beyond localized magnetic anomalies. Image credit: NASA / LPI.

Lunar Swirls May Be Produced by Strongly Magnetized Lava

Sep 7, 2018 by News Staff

Planetary researchers from Rutgers University and the University of California, Berkeley may have solved the mystery behind lunar swirls, wispy bright...

Huge Northern Polar Vortex Spotted Forming in Saturn’s Stratosphere

Sep 5, 2018 by News Staff

When NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the gas giant’s southern hemisphere was enjoying summertime, while the northern was in the...

The figure on the left is a composite image produced by adding 48 different exposures from News Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, each with an exposure time of 29.967 seconds, taken on August 16, 2018. The predicted position of 2014 MU69 is at the center of the yellow box, and is indicated by the yellow crosshairs, just above and left of a nearby star that is approximately 17 times brighter than 2014 MU69. At right is a magnified view of the region in the yellow box, after subtraction of a background star field ‘template’ taken by LORRI in September 2017 before it could detect the object itself. 2014 MU69 is clearly detected in this star-subtracted image and is very close to where scientists predicted, indicating to the team that New Horizons is being targeted in the right direction. The many artifacts in the star-subtracted image are caused either by small mis-registrations between the new LORRI images and the template, or by intrinsic brightness variations of the stars. At the time of these observations, 2014 MU69 was 107 million miles (172 million km) from the New Horizons spacecraft and 4 billion miles (6.5 billion km) from the Sun. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI.

New Horizons Spots Its Next Flyby Target: Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69

Aug 31, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has made its first detection of its next target, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, more than four months ahead of its...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on a mission to explore the asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Spies Its Target Asteroid

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

After an almost two-year journey through space, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx)...

Researchers Find Direct Evidence of Water Ice in Moon’s Polar Regions

Aug 21, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr. Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University has directly observed definitive evidence of surface-exposed...

Magnetic fields around Jupiter can overpower zonal jets that affect atmospheric circulation. Image credit: JAXA.

Magnetic Fields Impact Atmospheric Circulation of Gaseous Planets, Scientists Find

Aug 15, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Australian National University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has solved the mystery underlying Jupiter’s...

Illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Steve Gribben.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Launches Successfully

Aug 13, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched yesterday (August 12) from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, rising off the...

An artist’s rendition of NWA 11119 (far right bottom corner of illustration), the oldest-ever igneous meteorite. Image credit: University of New Mexico.

4.56-Billion-Year-Old Igneous Meteorite Contains Clues to Planetary Building Blocks

Aug 7, 2018 by News Staff

Northwest Africa (NWA) 11119, a stone meteorite found in December 2016 in Mauritania, is the world’s oldest igneous meteorite, according to new research. An...

Hayabusa-2 image of the asteroid Ryugu as seen from a distance of 3.7 miles. A particularly large crater is visible near the center of the image. Image credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / University of Aizu / AIST.

JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 Spacecraft Snaps Close-Up Photo of Asteroid Ryugu

Aug 3, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has revealed a stunning close-up shot of the asteroid Ryugu captured by its Hayabusa-2 spacecraft. Hayabusa-2...

Pluto in true color. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Alex Parker.

True Colors of Pluto and Its Largest Moon Charon

Aug 2, 2018 by News Staff

Marking the anniversary of New Horizons’ historic flight through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, NASA released high-resolution natural-color images...

An artist’s impression of a potentially habitable exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Planets Don’t Need Plate Tectonics to Be Habitable

Aug 1, 2018 by News Staff

There may be more habitable exoplanets than we previously thought, according to Pennsylvania State University researchers Bradford Foley and Andrew Smye,...

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

Mars Terraforming is Not Possible Using Currently Available Technology, Researchers Say

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

On Mars, the atmospheric pressure is around 0.6% of Earth’s. Any liquid water on the surface would very quickly evaporate or freeze. One of the challenges...

Illustration of the early solar disk, with an inset image of a blue crystal of hibonite, one of the first minerals to form in the Solar System. Image credit: Field Museum / University of Chicago / NASA / ESA / E. Field, STScl.

Meteorite Researchers Find Strong Evidence Early Sun Was Highly Active

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

By examining microscopic ice-blue crystals of mineral hibonite trapped inside a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, an international team of scientists was...

Team Zopherus of Rogers is the first-place winner in NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, Phase 3: Level 1 competition. Image credit: NASA.

NASA Awards Top Five Design Finalists in 3D Printed Martian Habitat Challenge

Jul 31, 2018 by News Staff

Future missions to Mars and beyond will require innovative options to shelter explorers. NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, a Centennial Challenges...

An artist’s impression of ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Finds Huge Reservoir of Liquid Water below Martian Surface

Jul 25, 2018 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has used radar signals bounced through underground layers of ice to find evidence of liquid water trapped below the south...

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.

NASA Unveils Radiation Maps of Europa

Jul 25, 2018 by News Staff

Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of the most compelling targets in the search for life beyond Earth. However, its water-ice surface is affected by the harsh...