Planetary Science News

Valleys younger than better-known ancient valley networks on Mars are evident on the landscape in the northern Arabia Terra region, particularly in the area mapped here with color-coded topographical information overlaid onto a photo mosaic. The area includes a basin informally named ‘Heart Lake’ at upper left. Data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor orbiter are coded here as white and purple for lower elevations, yellow for higher elevation. The elevation information is combined with a mosaic of images from NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, covering an area about 120 miles (about 190 km) wide. The mapped area is centered near 35.91 degrees north latitude, 1 degree east longitude on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU.

Mars Had Lakes, Snowmelt-Fed Streams More Recently than Thought

Sep 16, 2016 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor have sent back new images and data from the Red Planet that indicate...

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.

Researchers Discover Why Charon’s North Polar Cap is Red

Sep 15, 2016 by News Staff

Scientists on NASA’s New Horizons mission have learned that reddish material in the north polar region of Pluto’s biggest moon, Charon, is chemically...

This view from Curiosity’s Mast Camera shows a sloping hillside within the ‘Murray Buttes’ region on lower Mount Sharp. The rim of Gale Crater, where the rover has been active since landing in 2012, is visible in the distance, through the dusty haze. The image was taken on September 8, 2016, during the 1454th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Finds Spectacular Rock Formations on Mars

Sep 14, 2016 by News Staff

A set of new photos taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover reveals signs of past geologic activity. This view from Curiosity’s Mast Camera shows a sloping...

Moon. Image credit: Gregory H. Revera / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Moon is Proto-Earth’s Mantle, Researchers Say

Sep 12, 2016 by News Staff

Measurements of potassium in lunar and terrestrial rocks have disproved the leading hypotheses for the origin of Earth’s sole natural satellite. Moon....

Rosetta NavCam image taken on 14 March 2015 at 85.7 km from the center of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko; it has been cleaned to remove the more obvious bad pixels and cosmic ray artefacts, and intensities have been scaled. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Rosetta Finds Solid Organic Matter in Dust Particles from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Sep 8, 2016 by News Staff

ESA’s Rosetta orbiter has made the first unambiguous detection of solid organic matter in dust grains ejected by comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This...

Snowcapped mountains in the southernmost part of Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Finds Methane Snow-Capped Mountains near Pluto’s South Polar Region

Sep 6, 2016 by News Staff

A new close-up image from NASA’s New Horizons robotic spacecraft reveals snowcapped mountains in the southernmost part of Pluto. Snowcapped mountains...

The ratio of volatile elements in Earth’s mantle suggests that virtually all of the planet’s life-giving carbon came from a collision with an embryonic planet about 100 million years after Earth formed. Image credit: A. Passwaters / Rice University / NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Proto-Earth Collided with Mercury-Like Planetary Embryo about 4.4 Billion Years Ago

Sep 6, 2016 by News Staff

In a new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers offer a new answer to a long-debated question: how did carbon-based life develop on Earth,...

Juno Sends Back Incredible New Images of Jupiter

Sep 3, 2016 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has beamed back the most detailed images yet of the Solar System’s king of the planets, Jupiter. This montage of ten JunoCam...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Scientists use false color to examine differences in surface materials. The color blue on Ceres is generally associated with bright material, found in more than 130 locations, and seems to be consistent with salts. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Six Studies Provide New Insights into Dwarf Planet Ceres

Sep 2, 2016 by News Staff

Researchers on the Dawn mission released a series of six groundbreaking papers on the dwarf planet Ceres today in the journal Science. The new results...

In this image of Phobos, red arrows indicate a chain of small craters whose origin researchers were able to trace back to a primary impact at a large crater known as Grildrig. Image credit: M. Nayak & E. Asphaug / ESA / Mars Express.

Researchers Solve Mystery of Anomalous Grooves on Phobos

Sep 2, 2016 by News Staff

Anomalous grooves on Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons, are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface...

Earth-Moon system. Image credit: Comfreak.

Moon Mission Could Reveal the Story of Earth’s Journey around the Milky Way

Sep 1, 2016 by James Romero

A researcher’s proposal for an ESA mission to return to the Moon could lay the groundwork for a full-surface geological survey from a permanent lunar...

Map showing distribution of inverted channels (black lines) and valley networks (white lines) in Arabia Terra, Mars. Many of the inverted channels (e.g., southwest region of study area) are not associated with valley networks. Background image is Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter gridded topographic map. Image credit: J.M. Davis et al.

Planetary Researchers Find Evidence of Ancient River Systems in Mars’ Arabia Terra

Aug 23, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of scientists led by University College London researcher Joel Davis has identified over 10,500 miles (17,000 km) of ancient river...

Close Encounters between Centaurs and Gas Giants Form Our Solar System’s ‘Pinky Rings’

Aug 19, 2016 by James Romero

Our gas giants strip the icy surface off minor planets to form miniature versions of Saturn’s famous rings throughout the outer solar system, according...

Observations suggest Venus may have had water oceans in its distant past; a land-ocean pattern like that above was used in a climate model to show how storm clouds could have shielded ancient Venus from strong sunlight and made the planet habitable. Image credit: NASA.

Venus May Have Been Solar System’s First Habitable Planet

Aug 15, 2016 by News Staff

Venus today is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius) and an atmosphere 90 times as thick...

Cassini caught the sunlight glinting off Titan's seas and lakes filled with liquid methane or ethane. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / University of Idaho.

Cassini Spots Liquid Methane-Filled Canyons on Titan

Aug 11, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Liquid methane-filled canyons hundreds to thousands of feet deep etch the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, according to researchers with NASA’s Cassini...

This false-color image from Cassini shows clouds in the atmosphere of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute / Kevin M. Gill.

Stunning New Cassini Image Shows Saturn’s Clouds

Aug 10, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new infrared image from NASA’s Cassini orbiter shows enormous clouds in the northern hemisphere of the gas giant Saturn. This false-color image from...

This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER’s primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up the planet’s surface. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Widespread Volcanism on Planet Mercury Ended by 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Aug 9, 2016 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the main phase of volcanism on Mercury ended by 3.5 billion years ago,...

Dawn Orbiter Provides Clues to Internal Structure of Dwarf Planet Ceres

Aug 4, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft about Ceres’ gravity and topography, mission scientists have found that the dwarf planet is ‘differentiated,’...

Artist’s concept of the mechanism of heating from the Great Red Spot. Turbulent atmospheric flows above the storm produce both gravity waves and acoustic waves. Gravity waves are much like how a guitar string moves when plucked, while acoustic waves are compressions of the air (sound waves). Heating in the upper atmosphere 500 miles (805 km) above the storm is thought to be caused by a combination of these two wave types ‘crashing’ like ocean waves on a beach. Image credit: Karen Teramura, University of Hawaii at Manoa / James O’Donoghue, Boston University.

Great Red Spot Heats Jupiter’s Upper Atmosphere

Jul 28, 2016 by News Staff

The upper atmosphere above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – the largest storm in the Solar System – is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere...