Planetary Science News

Three waves can be seen in this image, which is an excerpt of a JunoCam image taken on February 2, 2017, during Juno’s fourth flyby of Jupiter. The region imaged in this picture is part of the visibly dark band just north of Jupiter’s equator known as the North Equatorial Belt. Most of this belt is characterized by downwelling motions, but during the fourth flyby it had several bright areas of upwelling clouds. One of those upwelling clouds appears to be accompanied by dark regions, which are most likely shadows. The shadow associated with the center of the three waves is about 25 miles (40 km) long; from the angle of illumination, researchers deduced that the shadowed part of the wave must be around 4 miles (7 km) above the main cloud deck, with the peak of the wave probably close to 6 miles (10 km) above the main cloud deck. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam.

Juno Spots ‘Waves Trains’ in Jovian Atmosphere

Nov 6, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno orbiter has detected ‘wave trains’ — massive structures of moving air that appear like waves — in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Three...

This mosaic of images from the MDIS Narrow Angle Camera on NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft shows the impact crater Hokusai, located on Mercury at a latitude of 58°N. The crater has an impressive system of rays, which extend as much as a thousand kilometers (more than 600 miles) across the planet and are the longest that have yet been identified on Mercury. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The Great Wave that Brought Water to Mercury

Nov 1, 2018 by James Romero

The impact that formed Mercury’s spectacular 100-km (62-mile) wide Hokusai crater, named after the famous Japanese artist, who created the Great Wave...

The white, elongated cloud in the vicinity of the Arsia Mons volcano, close to the planet’s equator. Image credit: ESA / GCP / UPV / EHU Bilbao / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Spots Elongated Cloud in Martian Atmosphere

Oct 29, 2018 by News Staff

Since September 13, 2018, ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft has been observing the evolution of a water ice cloud formation hovering in the vicinity of Arsia...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Salty, Oxygenated Water on Mars Could Host Simple Aerobic Life

Oct 23, 2018 by News Staff

Caltech researcher Vlada Stamenković and co-authors calculated that if liquid water exists on the Red Planet, it could contain more oxygen than previously...

An artist’s impression of MASCOT during landing. Image credit: DLR.

Asteroid Lander MASCOT Completes Exploration of Ryugu

Oct 12, 2018 by News Staff

The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT), a lander carried by JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, successfully completed its historic exploration of the...

Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges; the large circular feature on the upper right, called Galileo Regio, is an ancient region of unknown origin; Ganymede is thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth and might contain life; like Earth’s Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter; this image was taken about 20 years ago by NASA’s Galileo probe, which ended its mission by diving into Jupiter’s atmosphere in 2003; currently, NASA’s Juno spacecraft orbits Jupiter and is studying the giant planet’s internal structure, among many other attributes. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Galileo probe.

Planetary Researchers Find Evidence of Ancient Strike-Slip Tectonics on Ganymede

Oct 12, 2018 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Icarus, reveals Ganymede — the largest and most massive moon of Jupiter and in the Solar System — appears...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

New Science Results from Cassini’s Grand Finale

Oct 11, 2018 by News Staff

Cassini’s 20-year mission culminated in a series of wild orbits. First, it grazed the outer rim of Saturn’s rings and then, in the Grand Finale phase,...

Terrestrial penitentes from the southern end of the Chajnantor plain, Chile, in 2005; the view is broadly northwards; blades can be seen perpendicular to the viewing direction. Image credit: ESO.

50-Foot-Tall Ice Spikes Cover Europa, New Study Suggests

Oct 9, 2018 by News Staff

Fields of sharp ice growing to almost 50 feet (15 m) tall could be scattered across the equatorial regions of Jupiter’s moon Europa, according to a new...

Phosphates were found to be generated in outer space and delivered to early Earth by meteorites or comets. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Phosphates, Key Building Blocks for Life, May Have Come from Deep Space

Oct 3, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from the United States, Taiwan and France provides new evidence that phosphates — a key element in the building...

Martian moon Phobos. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Phobos May Have Come from Massive Impact on Mars

Sep 26, 2018 by News Staff

The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos have been suggested to be captured asteroids based on the similarities between the dark, red, nearly featureless spectra...

An artist’s concept of a dust storm on Titan. Image credit: NASA / ESA / IPGP / Labex UnivEarthS / University Paris Diderot.

Cassini Scientists Spot Dust Storms on Saturn’s Moon Titan

Sep 25, 2018 by News Staff

Researchers using data from NASA’s Cassini orbiter have found evidence for massive dust storms in Titan’s equatorial regions. The discovery, reported...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ancient Mars Had Ample Chemical Energy to Support Subsurface Microbial Colonies

Sep 25, 2018 by News Staff

Mars had right conditions for subsurface life some 3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago (Noachian period), according to new research from Brown University. An...

A ‘brown barge’ cyclone in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill created this image using data from the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin M. Gill.

NASA’s Juno Orbiter Spots ‘Brown Barge’ Cloud on Jupiter

Sep 19, 2018 by News Staff

A new image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft shows a long, brown oval known as a ‘brown barge’ in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. A ‘brown barge’...

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.

Researchers Say the Reason Pluto Lost Its Planet Status is Not Valid

Sep 10, 2018 by News Staff

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a definition of a planet that required it to clear its orbit, or in other words, be the...

The Reiner Gamma formation is a well known lunar swirl region, due to its nearside location. Swirls are described by curving, diffuse bright patterns, which are interspersed with darker lanes. These anomalous albedo patterns are associated with local magnetic anomalies of varying intensities; swirl complexes are often extensive and may stretch across thousands of kilometers, well beyond localized magnetic anomalies. Image credit: NASA / LPI.

Lunar Swirls May Be Produced by Strongly Magnetized Lava

Sep 7, 2018 by News Staff

Planetary researchers from Rutgers University and the University of California, Berkeley may have solved the mystery behind lunar swirls, wispy bright...

Huge Northern Polar Vortex Spotted Forming in Saturn’s Stratosphere

Sep 5, 2018 by News Staff

When NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, the gas giant’s southern hemisphere was enjoying summertime, while the northern was in the...

Researchers Find Direct Evidence of Water Ice in Moon’s Polar Regions

Aug 21, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr. Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii and Brown University has directly observed definitive evidence of surface-exposed...

Magnetic fields around Jupiter can overpower zonal jets that affect atmospheric circulation. Image credit: JAXA.

Magnetic Fields Impact Atmospheric Circulation of Gaseous Planets, Scientists Find

Aug 15, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Australian National University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has solved the mystery underlying Jupiter’s...

An artist’s rendition of NWA 11119 (far right bottom corner of illustration), the oldest-ever igneous meteorite. Image credit: University of New Mexico.

4.56-Billion-Year-Old Igneous Meteorite Contains Clues to Planetary Building Blocks

Aug 7, 2018 by News Staff

Northwest Africa (NWA) 11119, a stone meteorite found in December 2016 in Mauritania, is the world’s oldest igneous meteorite, according to new research. An...