Space Exploration News

This image shows Watson 021, a single H7 ordinary chondrite, weighing 135 g. The sample has a large crack, lined with alteration minerals, that runs down its middle and only one third of its fusion crust remains intact. This meteorite shows near complete oxidation of its reduced metal and sulfide phases making this a W4 chondrite. Watson 021 is extensively shocked, exhibiting globular silicate metal emulsions and shock veins that crosscut the sample. Tait et al found that microbial communities in samples of Nullarbor Plain soil are more diverse than those in Watson 021 and other meteorites, which are highly uniform in their species evenness and species richness. Image credit: Tait et al, doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01227.

Research Opens New Way to Understand Possible Martian Life through Meteorites

Jul 20, 2017 by News Staff

New research from Monash University and the University of Queensland has added a new dimension to understanding life on the Red Planet with the discovery...

Artist’s conception of the dust and gas surrounding a newly formed planetary system. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Water Explained by Gas Giant Gluttony

Jul 19, 2017 by James Romero

Water on Earth, Mars and everywhere within the inner Solar System can be traced back to the rapid waist-expanding growth of Jupiter and Saturn, which knocked...

A global map of the dwarf planet Pluto. Terrain south of about 30°S was in darkness leading up to and during the flyby, so is shown in black. ‘S’ and ‘T’ indicate Sputnik Planitia and Tartarus Dorsa. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / LPI.

NASA Releases Spectacular Flyover Videos, Global Maps of Pluto and Charon

Jul 18, 2017 by News Staff

On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flight through the Pluto system. On the two-year anniversary of the flyby, the New...

This image of the Great Red Spot was taken on July 10, 2017, as Juno performed its seventh close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 8,648 miles (13,917 km) from the tops of the clouds of the planet. Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Captures Close-Up Views of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Jul 13, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has provided planetary researchers the first close-up views of Jupiter’s mysterious, roiling storm called the Great Red Spot. This...

This image of Saturn’s moon Epimetheus was taken with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on February 21, 2017, using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 939 nm. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Stunning View of Saturn’s Small Moon Epimetheus

Jul 11, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter captured this incredible view of Epimetheus, an inner satellite of Saturn, during a flyby on February 21, 2017. The flyby...

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.

Hydrocarbon Seas on Saturn’s Moon Titan are Very Calm

Jul 6, 2017 by News Staff

New research has found that most waves on Titan’s seas of liquid hydrocarbons are diminutive, reaching only about 1 cm (0.4 inches) high and 20 cm (8...

An illustration of an asteroid on its way to ancient Mars. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / Nathan Owen-Price / Sci.News.

Mars’ Two-Faces and Moons Could Result from an Early Cataclysmic Impact

Jul 4, 2017 by James Romero

Mars experienced a single colossal impact during its first 130 million years, the equivalent to the largest body in the today’s asteroid belt slamming...

Georgia Tech researchers propose that a ‘switch-like’ magnetosphere exists at Uranus in both equinox and solstice seasons, where the planetary rotation drives the interchange between an open magnetosphere and a closed magnetosphere each Uranus day. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Uranus Has ‘Switch-Like’ Magnetosphere

Jun 27, 2017 by News Staff

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics suggests that the magnetosphere of the ice giant Uranus gets flipped on and...

The exaggerated color makes Curiosity appear bluer than it really looks. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Views Curiosity Climbing Mount Sharp

Jun 22, 2017 by News Staff

Using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera — the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance...

Left: arriving at Uranus in 1986, Voyager 2 observed a bluish orb with subtle features; a haze layer hid most of the planet’s cloud features from view. Right: this image of Neptune was produced from Voyager 2 and shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright smudge. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA Researchers Complete Study of Potential Future Mission to Uranus and Neptune Systems

Jun 21, 2017 by News Staff

A study of the potential future mission to ‘ice giant’ planets Uranus and Neptune and their moons has been released — the first in a series of...

This artist’s concept shows MAVEN in orbit around Mars, with a fanciful image of Earth in the background. Image credit: NASA / GSFC.

NASA’s MAVEN Mission Celebrates 1,000 Earth Days in Orbit around Mars

Jun 17, 2017 by News Staff

Today, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission — sent to Mars to explore its upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions...

Titan’s summer skies. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Sees Methane Clouds in Titan’s Summer Skies

Jun 15, 2017 by News Staff

On June 9, 2017, NASA’s Cassini orbiter captured an image of methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan’s summer skies....

Elon Musk’s Vision of Self-Sustaining Martian City, Manned Flights to Mars, Other Planets

Jun 15, 2017 by News Staff

An article entitled ‘Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species’ presents the vision of Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, for future manned trips to Mars and...

This image of Iapetus was taken with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on March 11, 2017. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Beams Back New Image of Saturn’s Moon Iapetus

Jun 13, 2017 by News Staff

A new image of Saturn’s yin-yang moon, Iapetus, was recently captured by NASA’s Cassini probe, currently in its ‘Grand Finale’ phase. This image...

Jupiter is the oldest planet in the Solar System. Image credit: NASA.

Jupiter is Solar System’s Oldest Planet, Planetary Researchers Say

Jun 12, 2017 by News Staff

The gas giant Jupiter is not only the most massive planet in our Solar System, but it’s also the oldest, according to an international team of planetary...

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.

Could Pluto’s Orbital Wobbles Create Its Mysterious Glacial Crazy-Paving?

Jun 6, 2017 by James Romero

Strange fields of polygons seen during New Horizons’ visit to Pluto could be explained by million year variations in the dwarf planet’s orbit caused...

$This enhanced-color view of Enceladus is largely of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image. Ancient craters remain somewhat pristine in some locales, but have clearly relaxed in others. Northward-trending fractures, likely caused by a change in the moon’s rate of rotation and the consequent flattening of the moon’s shape, rip across the southern hemisphere. The south polar terrain is marked by a striking set of ‘blue’ fractures and encircled by a conspicuous and continuous chain of folds and ridges, testament to the forces within Enceladus that have yet to be silenced. The mosaic was created from 21 false-color frames taken during Cassini’s close approaches to Enceladus on March 9 and July 14, 2005. Images taken using filters sensitive to UV, visible and IR light (spanning wavelengths from 338 to 930 nm) were combined to create the individual frames. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.$

Enceladus May Have Tipped Over in Distant Past

Jun 5, 2017 by News Staff

While combing through data gathered by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during flybys of Enceladus, the sixth-largest of Saturn’s moons, researchers have...

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 Finds New Evidence of Surface Water Ice on Moon

Jun 2, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have found evidence of surface frost near the Moon’s south pole. A view of...

$Pale zones called ‘halos’ border bedrock fractures visible in this 2015 image (colorized) from the Curiosity rover. Measurements overlaid on the image offer a sense of scale for the size of these fractures. The rover team determined that the halos are rich in silica, a clue to the duration of wet environmental conditions long ago. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.$

High-Silica ‘Halos’ Found in Gale Crater Shed Light on Wet Ancient Mars

May 31, 2017 by News Staff

Fracture-associated ‘halos’ of lighter-toned bedrock have been found on the lower north slope of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) in Gale crater, Mars, indicating...

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