Planetary Science News

On some of the dune fields on Mars, parallel channels, called linear dune gullies, are found. Contrary to their name these gullies are often highly sinuous....

Exploring the possibility of the survival of life under extraterrestrial conditions is an important goal of astrobiology. In a new study, scientists used...

Roughly 4.3 billion years ago, when our Solar System was still in its infancy, a giant asteroid slammed into the far side of the Moon, blasting an enormous...

The leading hypotheses for the origin of the Moon call for a giant impact event between proto-Earth and a separate impactor called Theia. The efficiency...

Saturn’s moon Enceladus continuously ejects a plume of ice grains and gases originating from its subsurface ocean via fractures near its south pole....

The stark contrast between the Moon’s near side and far side in topography, volcanic activity and crustal structure provides critical insights into lunar...

The newly-discovered mineral, named ferric hydroxysulfate, provides clues about the environment and history of the Red Planet, including the possibility...

Minerals are the building blocks of rocks, and the types of minerals and their chemistry provide critical information about rock formation and history....

This water flow occurred on an ancient asteroid more than one billion years after its formation and was probably triggered by an impact that generated...

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope have detected a series of dark, bead-like and asymmetric star-shaped features in the ionosphere...

The polar vortex is a consequence of Martian seasons, which occur because the planet’s axis is tilted at an angle of 25.2 degrees, according to University...

Saturn’s magnetosphere contains trapped plasma and energetic charged particles which constantly irradiate the surface of Enceladus. The plasma consists...

NASA’s Perseverance rover has explored and sampled igneous and sedimentary rocks within Jezero crater to characterize early Martian geological processes...

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found evidence for gaseous methane on the distant dwarf planet Makemake. Reported in...

Jupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular aurorae in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet...

The mantle of Mars contains ancient fragments up to 4 km wide from its formation — preserved like geological fossils from the planet’s violent...

The new Polana collisional family in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt is the hypothesized origin of the near-Earth asteroids (101955) Bennu, which...

The first bodies to form in the Solar System acquired their materials from stars, the presolar molecular cloud and the protoplanetary disk. Asteroids that...

Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, the results of a new study support theories that this dwarf planet may have once...