Planetary Science News

Martian Rocks May Contain Numerous Types of False Biosignatures, Astrobiologists Say

Organic and inorganic biomorphs (small abiotic structures that bear a morphological resemblance to living or fossil microbes): (a) asteroidal trichites radiating from central magnetite grains in a natural volcanic glass; (b) organic microspheres obtained from RNA and quartz mixtures under diagenetic conditions; (c) amphiphilic spherical and tube-like vesicles formed by mixed fatty acids and 1-alkanols (C10-C15) in 10 mM CaCl2; (d) coacervate microdroplets prepared in water by mixing PDDA with ATP; (e, f ) chain-forming and twinning proteinoid microspheres obtained by heating mixtures of amino acids; (g, h) apatite particles formed by double diffusion in gelatin mimicking dividing cells and raised polygonal features in embryos; (i) rod-shaped silica particles formed on the walls of basalt fractures injected with supercritical CO2; (j) cryogenic opal filaments and sheets formed in rapidly freezing silica-rich fluids; (k) cryogenic carbonate segmented filaments obtained by freezing of silica-rich alkaline brines; (l) rod-shaped apatite particles forming within organic films in sediments; (m) fluoroapatite particle precipitated in the presence of citrate, mimicking dividing coccoid cells. Image credit: McMahon & Cosmidis, doi: 10.1144/jgs2021-050.
Nov 22, 2021 by News Staff

In a new paper published in the Journal of the Geological Society, University of Edinburgh’s Dr. Sean McMahon and University of Oxford’s Dr. Julie Cosmidis attempt to summarize the physicochemical processes so far known to generate life-like morphologies, minerals, molecules and other phenomena, and consider how and where they may have taken place on early Mars, with a particular focus on the materials that NASA’s Perseverance rover and ESA’s...

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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.

Juno Provides New Information about Jupiter’s Enigmatic Atmospheric Features

Nov 1, 2021 by News Staff

Juno launched on August 5, 2011 and successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016. During each of the spacecraft’s 37 passes of Jupiter to date,...

This artistic conception illustrates large asteroids penetrating Earth’s oxygen-poor atmosphere. Image credit: SwRI / Dan Durda / Simone Marchi.

Archean Asteroid Impacts Delayed Evolution of Earth’s Atmosphere, Study Suggests

Oct 21, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United States and Austria has analyzed remnants of ancient asteroids and modeled the effects of their violent collisions...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Records Martian Sounds

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover carries two microphones which are directly recording sounds on Mars, including wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel,...

This is an artist impression of the protoplanetary disk around HD 107146. Image credit: A. Angelich / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Mysterious Gap Existed within Solar System’s Protoplanetary Disk, New Research Suggests

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

Around 4.567 billion years ago, our Solar System harbored a gap within the protoplanetary disk, near the location where the main asteroid belt resides...

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.

Scientists Create Maps of Titan’s Hydrocarbon Rivers and Tributaries

Oct 19, 2021 by News Staff

Planetary researchers have mapped all observable fluvial features on Saturn’s hazy moon Titan — excluding those in the highly incised labyrinth...

An artist’s impression of the early Venus. Image credit: Manchu.

Venus Never Had Oceans, New Study Suggests

Oct 18, 2021 by News Staff

New research led by the Observatoire astronomique de l’Université de Genève suggests that water never condensed and that, consequently, oceans never...

This illustration shows NASA’s Lucy spacecraft passing one of the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Launches to Study Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids

Oct 18, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft was launched on October 16, 2021, at 5:34 a.m. EDT aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket out of Space Launch Complex...

Palmerini et al. analyzed the isotopic composition of heavy neutron capture elements measured in SiC stardust grains extracted from pristine meteorites, interpreting them as the outcome of s-process nucleosynthesis occurring in the AGB stages of stars with masses between two and three solar masses and solar metallicities. Image credit: Nan Liu / Andrew Davis / NASA.

Researchers Measure Isotopic Ratios in Presolar Stardust Grains

Oct 12, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has analyzed a diverse set of presolar grains with the goal of realizing their true stellar origins. Palmerini et al....

Perseverance Finds Ancient Delta-Lake System, Flood Deposits in Martian Jezero Crater

Oct 8, 2021 by News Staff

Planetary scientists have analyzed images taken by the Mastcam-Z camera and the Remote Micro-Imager of the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance...

This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 images collected on December 2, 2018 by OSIRIS-REx’s PolyCam instrument from a range of 15 miles (24 km). Image credit: NASA / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / University of Arizona.

Asteroids with Highly Porous Rocks Lack Fine-Grain Regolith: Study

Oct 7, 2021 by News Staff

Planetary researchers have discovered an inverse correlation between the local abundance of fine-grain material and the porosity of rocks on the carbonaceous...

Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles -- called tholins -- that grow as they settle toward the surface. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Nitrogen Atmosphere is Condensing as Dwarf Planet Moves Away from Sun

Oct 5, 2021 by News Staff

The surface pressure on the dwarf planet Pluto is decreasing and that its nitrogen atmosphere is condensing, forming ice on the dwarf planet’s surface,...

Valley networks and paleolake outlet canyons on Mars: (a) distribution of analyzed valley networks (black) and paleolake outlet canyons (white); gray shading indicates the combined latitude (poleward of ±30°) and age (younger than Early Hesperian) mask used for volume calculations; (b and c) examples of the early Martian landscape dissected by both valley networks (black) and paleolake outlet canyons (white); paleolake basin extents shown by semi-transparent white polygons. Image credit: Goudge et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03860-1.

Lake Breach Floods Eroded Surface of Early Mars, Study Says

Sep 30, 2021 by News Staff

Massive floods from overflowing crater lakes were responsible for eroding at least 24% of the volume of incised valleys on early Mars, according to new...

Hydrogen atoms diffuse easily between the superionic and the liquid phases. The liquid-fcc superionic interface of a water system with 20,736 atoms at 100 GPa and 3,250 K (on the melting curve) is shown. The oxygen atoms are red and the hydrogen atoms are white. The yellow, green and blue lines show the trajectories of three hydrogen atoms during a 75 ps molecular dynamics simulation run. Image credit: Cheng et al., doi: 10.1038/s41567-021-01334-9.

Physicists Study Superionic Water’s Phase Behaviors

Sep 28, 2021 by News Staff

Using machine learning, a team of physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has studied the phase behaviors of superionic water — a phase...

An artist’s impression of the InSight lander on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

InSight Detects Three Strong Marsquakes

Sep 23, 2021 by News Staff

On September 18, 2021, NASA’s InSight lander celebrated its 1,000th Martian day by measuring one of the biggest, longest-lasting marsquakes its has ever...

An illustration of NASA’s VIPER lunar rover. Image credit: NASA / Ames Research Center / Daniel Rutter.

NASA Announces Landing Site for VIPER Lunar Rover

Sep 21, 2021 by News Staff

NASA has chosen the western edge of Nobile Crater at the Moon’s south pole as the landing site for its upcoming Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Mars Too Small to Be Habitable, New Study Suggests

Sep 20, 2021 by News Staff

The habitability of Mars is limited by its small size, according to new research by Washington University in St. Louis planetary scientists. This artist’s...

This image, acquired by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on October 1, 2020, shows several craters in Arabia Terra filled with layered rock. Image credit: NASA / Molly Wasser.

Early Mars Experienced Volcanic Supereruptions, Reseachers Say

Sep 16, 2021 by News Staff

Using high-resolution images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary scientists have discovered 4-billion-year-old layered deposits containing...

Meteoroids bombarded the Earth-Moon system 800 million years ago. Image credit: Murayama, Osaka University.

Young Moon May Have Been Subjected to Heavier Bombardment than Previously Thought

Sep 14, 2021 by News Staff

Impact bombardment has played a significant role in the evolution of the Earth-Moon system. However, it is suggested from different perspectives, including...

The sample of Mars rock is seen inside a titanium container tube in this image taken by the Sampling and Caching System Camera (CacheCam) onboard NASA’s Perseverance rover. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Successfully Completes Collection of Mars Rock Sample

Sep 8, 2021 by News Staff

Perseverance’s first cored-rock sample from Jezero Crater, Mars, is now enclosed in an airtight titanium sample tube, making it available for retrieval...

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