Space Exploration News

Planetary Researchers Solve Mystery of How Pluto Got Its Pear-Shaped Feature

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.
Apr 16, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pluto’s surface is dominated by the huge, pear-shaped basin Sputnik Planitia. It appears to be of impact origin, but modeling has not yet explained its peculiar geometry. Planetary scientists at the University of Bern propose an impact mechanism that reproduces the basin’s topographic shape while also explaining its alignment near the Pluto-Charon axis. According to their research, Pluto’s collision with a planetary body about 700 km (435 miles)...

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Schematic view of planetary material escaping through Venus magnetosheath flank; the red line and arrow show the region and direction of observations by BepiColombo when the escaping ions (C+, O+, H+) were observed. Image credit: Thibaut Roger / Europlanet 2024 RI / Hadid et al.

BepiColombo Detects Oxygen and Carbon Ions in Magnetosphere of Venus

Apr 15, 2024 by Natali Anderson

In August 2021, the ESA/JAXA Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft performed its second flyby of Venus and provided a short-lived observation of its induced...

This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.

Arrokoth and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Contain Pristine Ices, Study Suggests

Apr 2, 2024 by News Staff

A duo of planetary scientists from Brown University and the SETI Institute has found that the Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth, which was the target...

SOHO-5000, the 5,000th comet discovered with SOHO spacecraft, is noted by a small white box in the upper left portion of this image. A zoomed-in inset shows the comet as a faint dot between the white vertical lines. The image was taken on March 25, 2024, by SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). Image credit: NASA / ESA / SOHO.

SOHO Observatory Discovers Its 5,000th Comet

Mar 29, 2024 by News Staff

On March 25, 2024, Hanjie Tan, an astronomy Ph.D. student in Prague, Czech Republic, spotted a comet in an image from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric...

Jörges et al. tackled the question of whether body posture influences human perception of self-motion and distance; they found some evidence that the same amount of optic flow can elicit the sensation of having traveled further when supine versus when sitting upright, that is, optic flow is more effective at eliciting a sense of self-motion when supine; this constitutes evidence that visual and non-visual cues are at least partially integrated even when self-motion is presented only visually; however, they did not find any significant differences between performance on Earth and in the microgravity of the ISS, suggesting that vestibular cues play a minor role, if any, in the estimation of visually presented self-motion.

Astronauts Have Surprising Ability to Orient Themselves and Gauge Distance Traveled in Space: Study

Mar 28, 2024 by News Staff

New research has implications for crew safety in space and could potentially give clues to how aging affects people’s balance systems here on Earth. Jörges...

Fawdon et al. created the most detailed geologic map of Oxia Planum, the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. Image credit: Fawdon et al., doi: 10.1080/17445647.2024.2302361.

Scientists Create High-Resolution Geological Map of Oxia Planum

Mar 27, 2024 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary scientists have created the 1:30000 scale geological...

This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.

Clouds of Venus Could Be Hospitable for Some Forms of Life, New Research Suggests

Mar 20, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary scientists have long speculated about the potential habitability of Venus, not at its hot surface, but in the cloud layers located at 48-60 km...

This view of Titan is among the last images NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sent to Earth before it plunged into the giant planet’s atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Tricarbon Molecule Detected in Atmosphere of Titan

Mar 18, 2024 by Natali Anderson

The tricarbon molecule (C3) is likely produced in the upper atmosphere of Titan by the reaction of abundant acetylene with atomic carbon. This view of...

Noctis Mons. Image credit: NASA / USGS / Lee et al.

Planetary Scientists Discover Giant Shield Volcano on Mars

Mar 13, 2024 by News Staff

Provisionally designated Noctis Mons, the newly-discovered volcano is located just south of Mars’ equator, in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus, west of Valles...

This image from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera shows the globe of Mars set against a dark background. The disk of the planet features yellow, orange, blue and green patches, all with an overall muted grey hue, representing the varying composition of the surface. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / G. Michael / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Drives Deep-Ocean Circulation in Earth’s Oceans, Study Suggests

Mar 13, 2024 by News Staff

Geoscientists from Australia and France have used the geological record of Earth’s deep oceans to discover a connection between the orbits of our home...

This side of a commemorative plate mounted on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft features U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA Scientists Unveil Design for Europa Clipper’s ‘Golden Record’

Mar 12, 2024 by News Staff

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a triangular metal plate with a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s...

This illustration shows charged particles from Jupiter impacting Europa’s surface, splitting frozen water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen molecules; scientists believe some of these newly created oxygen gases could migrate toward the moon’s subsurface ocean, as depicted in the inset image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SWRI / PU.

Europa Produces Less Oxygen than Previously Thought

Mar 4, 2024 by News Staff

Using data from the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have calculated the...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows an area close to Mars’ north pole. The image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on April 14, 2023. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Spots Sand Dunes and Ice Layers at Martian North Pole

Mar 1, 2024 by News Staff

New images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft show the terrain surrounding the permanent north polar ice...

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

Study: Most Sightings of UAPs Occur in American West

Mar 1, 2024 by News Staff

Sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs), have been reported throughout history. Given...

The asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by NASA’s DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. DART’s on board DRACO imager captured this image from a distance of 68 km (42 miles). This image was the last to contain all of Dimorphos in the field of view. Image credit: NASA / Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Asteroid Moonlet Dimorphos May Have Been Reshaped Following Impact from NASA’s DART Mission

Feb 28, 2024 by News Staff

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully impacted Dimorphos, the natural satellite of the binary near-Earth...

Jezero Crater, one of the paleolakes examined in the study, is a paleolake and potential landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission to look for past life; the outlet canyon carved by overflow flooding is visible in the upper right side of the crater; ancient rivers carved the inlets on the left side of the crater. Image credit: NASA / Tim Goudge.

Ancient Mars May Have Had Hydrothermal Systems

Feb 22, 2024 by News Staff

The history of water on Mars is a puzzle that is of interest to planetary scientists as well as the general public. The Red Planet currently has water...

Beyond Neptune, there is a large disk of small objects, called the Kuiper Belt and beyond that is the Oort Cloud, home of the comets. This artwork shows a section of Kuiper Belt, crowded with the icy cores of potential comets. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Kuiper Belt May Be Much Larger than Previously Estimated

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) are thought to be the dominant source of interplanetary dust particles in the outer Solar System due to both collisions between...

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 Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Saturn’s moon Titan has an organic-rich atmosphere and surface with a subsurface ocean that may represent a habitable environment. In a new study, astrobiologists...

Glein et al. found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity deep within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Webb Finds Evidence of Hydrothermal Processes in Interiors of Eris and Makemake

Feb 15, 2024 by News Staff

The icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake have surfaces bearing methane ice of unknown origin. According to an analysis of data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James...

Arredondo et al. looked at four silicate-rich asteroids using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s SOFIA observatory to isolate the mid-infrared spectral signatures indicative of molecular water on two of them: Iris and Massalia. Image credit: NASA / Carla Thomas / Southwest Research Institute.

SOFIA Detects Molecular Water on Nominally Dry Asteroids

Feb 13, 2024 by News Staff

Using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), astronomers have obtained mid-infrared spectra...

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