Planetary Science News

This illustration models the topography of Ceres from NASA’s Dawn mission, with green and blue colors. Image credit: King et al., doi: 10.1029/2021AV000571.

Hemisphere-Scale Instabilities Explain Many Puzzling Features on Dwarf Planet Ceres

Aug 3, 2022 by News Staff

Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt. Because Ceres is small, there was not enough gravitational energy when it formed to heat the interior....

Temperature measurements for the Mare Tranquillitatis pit. Image credit: Horvath et al., doi: 10.1029/2022GL099710.

Lunar Pits Stay Warmer than Surface During Night, Finds New Study

Jul 29, 2022 by News Staff

Lunar pits, and caves to which they may lead, would make thermally stable sites — around a comfortable 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit)...

(a) Location of the Buckskin mudstone sample (red star) in Gale Crater, Mars; (b and c) images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager onboard the Curiosity rover of (b) Lamoose, a local float block adjacent to Buckskin within the Murray formation showing laminations, and (c) Buckskin. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Rare Mineral from Martian Crater was Created in Explosive Volcanic Eruption Over 3 Billion Years Ago

Jul 26, 2022 by News Staff

Tridymite is a high-temperature, low-pressure form of quartz that is extremely rare on Earth, and it wasn’t clear how a chunk of it ended up in Gale...

An artist’s rendering of Jupiter with rings that rival Saturn’s. Image credit: Stephen Kane / University of California, Riverside.

Study: Massive Galilean Moons Prevented Formation of Giant Ring System around Jupiter

Jul 21, 2022 by News Staff

Planetary rings are often speculated as being a relatively common attribute of giant planets, partly based on their prevalence within the Solar System....

This image, captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard ESA’s Mars Express on April 21, 2022, shows Ius and Tithonium Chasmata, which form part of Mars’ Valles Marineris canyon structure. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Spots Two Huge Canyons in Valles Marineris

Jul 21, 2022 by News Staff

The new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows sections of Ius Chasma and Tithonium Chasma —...

The global map of hydrogen abundances on the Moon after corrections for rare-earth element variations were made to the measured epithermal neutron data, and the count rates were calibrated using the linear relation. Image credit: Lawrence et al., doi: 10.1029/2022JE007197.

Scientists Create Global Map of Hydrogen Abundances across Moon

Jul 21, 2022 by News Staff

The new global map of bulk hydrogen abundances on the Moon’s surface allows planetary researchers to address many previously unexplored areas in the...

An artist’s impression of where an asteroid hit the surface of Mars 5-10 million years ago, ejected NWA 7034 and its transit to the Earth. Image credit: Curtin University.

Planetary Scientists Identify Home Crater of Famous Martian Meteorite

Jul 13, 2022 by Natali Anderson

New research shows that the Martian meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, known more commonly as ‘Black Beauty,’ was ejected between 5 and 10 milliom...

An artist’s impression of the Gliese 414 system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Study: Location and Amount of Land on Planet’s Surface Can Significantly Impact Its Habitability

Jul 12, 2022 by News Staff

University of Toronto astronomer Evelyn Macdonald and her colleagues have identified substantial differences in surface temperature, sea ice and water...

2020 CD3 is estimated to be only between one and six meters across. Image credit: Jonny Lindner.

Huge All-Season Ozone Hole Discovered over Tropics

Jul 5, 2022 by News Staff

University of Waterloo’s Professor Qing-Bin Lu has discovered a large, all-season ozone hole in the lower stratosphere over the tropics (30 deg N –...

BepiColombo captured this view of Mercury on June 23, 2023 as the spacecraft flew past the planet for its second of six gravity assist maneuvers at Mercury. This image was taken at 09:51:07 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 3, when the spacecraft was 1,406 km from the surface of Mercury. Closest approach of 200 km took place shortly before, at 09:44 UTC. In this view, north is up. While clearly a heavily cratered region, this image also highlights some of Mercury’s volcanic history. Mercury’s smooth plains were formed by volcanic eruptions of runny lavas that spread across the planet 3.7 billion years ago -- such as the plains visible between BepiColombo’s high-gain antenna and towards Mercury’s limb. The eruptions that formed these plains did not commonly build volcanoes that we are familiar with on Earth. The floor of the 125-km-wide Heaney crater (next to BepiColombo’s high-gain antenna in the centre of this image) is covered in smooth volcanic plains, and a small mound is illuminated. This is a rare example of a candidate volcano on Mercury, which will be an important target for BepiColombo’s high resolution imaging suite once in orbit. North of Heaney, past the high-gain antenna, is the 105-km-wide Amaral crater with a clearly defined rim and a central peak cluster. The region surrounding Amaral is pockmarked with so-called secondary craters caused by material ejected from Amaral during its formation re-impacting onto the surface nearby. This texture is common around fresh craters on Mercury. Image credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM.

BepiColombo Makes Its Second Gravity Assist Flyby of Mercury

Jun 24, 2022 by News Staff

BepiColombo, a joint endeavor between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), captured beautiful views of the...

This impressive view of Charon was captured on July 14, 2015. Charon’s color palette is not as diverse as Pluto’s; most striking is the reddish north (top) polar region, informally named Mordor Macula. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Research Sheds Light on Origin of Charon’s Red Polar Cap

Jun 21, 2022 by News Staff

The thin methane atmosphere of Pluto’s biggest moon, Charon, undergoes ‘explosive’ pulsations owing to the Pluto-Charon’s system’s near sideways...

Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images. Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.

Sulfur-Metabolizing Aerial Life Cannot Explain Composition of Venus’ Atmosphere, Scientists Say

Jun 21, 2022 by News Staff

In new research, a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge has tested the ‘life in the Venusian clouds’ hypothesis. Jordan et al. demonstrate...

This image shows part of the scarred and colorful landscape in Aonia Terra, Mars. The image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on April 25, 2022. It was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and the color channels of the HRSC. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Sees ‘Colorful’ Landscape in Aonia Terra

Jun 15, 2022 by News Staff

A new image from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows part of Aonia Terra, an upland region in the southern highlands of Mars. This image shows part of the...

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on January 11, 2017 using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 km (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Wong et al. / de Pater et al. / M. Zamani.

Jupiter’s Atmosphere is Inhomogeneous, New Study Suggests

Jun 8, 2022 by News Staff

While the massive atmosphere of Jupiter consists mainly of hydrogen and helium, the key to understanding the gas giant’s formation and evolution lies...

NASA’s Perseverance rover acquired this image on April 22, 2021, using its left Mastcam-Z camera. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Ingenuity Performs Its Longest and Fastest Flight to Date on Mars: Video

Jun 3, 2022 by News Staff

On April 18, 2022, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter made a record-breaking 25th flight. The rotorcraft covered 704 m (2,310 feet) at a max speed of 5.5...

This diagram shows three layers of aerosols in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. The height scale on the diagram represents the pressure above 10 bar. The deepest layer (Aerosol-1 layer) is thick and composed of a mixture of hydrogen sulfide ice and particles produced by the interaction of the planets’ atmospheres with sunlight. The key layer that affects the colors is the middle layer, which is a layer of haze particles (Aerosol-2 layer) that is thicker on Uranus than on Neptune. Irwin et al. suspect that, on both planets, methane ice condenses onto the particles in this layer, pulling the particles deeper into the atmosphere in a shower of methane snow. Because Neptune has a more active, turbulent atmosphere than Uranus does, the team believes Neptune’s atmosphere is more efficient at churning up methane particles into the haze layer and producing this snow. This removes more of the haze and keeps Neptune’s haze layer thinner than it is on Uranus, meaning the blue color of Neptune looks stronger. Above both of these layers is an extended layer of haze (Aerosol-3 layer) similar to the layer below it but more tenuous. On Neptune, large methane ice particles also form above this layer. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / NASA / JPL-Caltech / B. Jónsson.

Haze Layers are Responsible for Different Blue Hues of Neptune and Uranus, Scientists Say

Jun 1, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of planetary researchers led by University of Oxford scientists has performed an analysis of visible/near-infrared observations of...

This image was taken by Mastcam onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover on Sol 3466 (May 7, 2022 at 07:58:16 UTC). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Did Curiosity Rover Find ‘Doorway’ on Mars?

May 30, 2022 by The Conversation

On May 7, 2022, the Mast camera (Mastcam) onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover took a photo which appeared to show a doorway carved into the Martian rock. This...

Billions of years ago, a river flowed across the Mawrth Vallis valley on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL Caltech / University of Arizona.

New Research Sheds Light on Cause of Mars’ Transition from Wet to Dry

May 27, 2022 by News Staff

Early Mars had rivers, but the cause of the transition from a wet planet to dry remains unknown. Past Martian climate can be probed using the distribution...

An artist’s impression of the early Solar System as the Solar Nebula begins to disappear, causing asteroids to accelerate and collide. Image credit: Tobias Stierli / Flaeck.

Early Inner Solar System was Very Chaotic, Research Suggests

May 24, 2022 by News Staff

Planetary scientists from the ETH Zürich and elsewhere have determined palladium-silver (Pd-Ag) and platinum (Pt) isotope compositions of 13 iron meteorites...