Planetary Science News

Study: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s Water Has Similar Molecular Signature to Earth’s Water

This false-color four-image mosaic comprises images taken from a distance of 28.7 km from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 3 February 2015. The mosaic measures 4.2 x 4.6 km. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.
Dec 4, 2024 by NASA

Contradicting the results of several recent studies, the new findings reopen the case that Jupiter-family comets like 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko could have helped deliver water to Earth. This false-color four-image mosaic comprises images taken from a distance of 28.7 km from the center of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 3 February 2015. The mosaic measures 4.2 x 4.6 km. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0. Water was essential...

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Northwest Africa 7034. Image credit: NASA.

Meteorite Provides Evidence for Hydrothermal Activity on Ancient Mars

Nov 27, 2024 by News Staff

Scientists from Curtin University and the University of Adelaide have analyzed a 4.45-billion-year-old zircon grain from a famous Martian meteorite called...

Castillo-Rogez et al. show that there likely is an ocean layer in four of Uranus’ major moons: Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon; salty -- or briny -- oceans lie under the ice and atop layers of water-rich rock and dry rock; Miranda is too small to retain enough heat for an ocean layer. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA to Search for Subsurface Oceans within Uranian Moons

Nov 26, 2024 by News Staff

Several of the icy moons in the Jupiter and Saturn systems appear to possess internal liquid water oceans. Our knowledge of the Uranian moons is more limited...

1:3M mapping (originally mapped at 1:200,000) of a portion of the Orientale basin. The small craters near ‘Pa’ (red and yellow stars) excavate Orientale melt from beneath the mare and serve as a useful type example for similar small craters in similar basins. Maunder, the large crater in the NW part of the map, is Eratosthenian in age. Image credit: Runyon et al., doi: 10.3847/PSJ/ad862f.

Planetary Scientists Create Geological Map of Moon’s Oriental Basin

Nov 20, 2024 by News Staff

Researchers at the Planetary Science Institute have compiled a 1:200,000-scale geological map of the lunar Orientale basin, focusing on identifying the...

The Lafayette meteorite was chipped off the surface of Mars and then sped through space for roughly 11 million years. It eventually found its way into a drawer at Purdue University in 1931 and has since been teaching scientists about Mars. Image credit: Purdue Brand Studio.

Minerals in Lafayette Meteorite Were Exposed to Martian Liquid Water 742 Million Years Ago: Study

Nov 15, 2024 by News Staff

An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the planet hurtling through space; one of these chunks eventually crashed into the Earth....

The first panel of this artist’s concept depicts how Uranus’ magnetosphere was behaving before the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2; the second panel shows an unusual kind of solar weather was happening during the 1986 flyby, giving scientists a skewed view of the magnetosphere. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Voyager 2’s Flyby of Uranus in 1986 was During Anomalous Solar Event, New Study Suggests

Nov 11, 2024 by News Staff

When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, it provided scientists’ first close glimpse of this ice-giant planet. Alongside the discovery...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

Planetary Researchers Examine Tidal Effects on Interiors of Planets and Their Moons

Nov 7, 2024 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, TU Delft, and Caltech has developed a new method to compute...

The Zhurong landing site. Image credit: Wu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-75507-w.

Ancient Coastline Spotted in Martian Utopia Region

Nov 7, 2024 by News Staff

Sedimentary mineral deposits found on the surface of Mars may have been left by an ancient sea 3.5 billion years ago. New results from China’s Tianwen-1/Zhurong...

Perseverance captured the silhouette of Phobos as it passed in front of the Sun on September 30, 2024. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS.

Perseverance Views Transit of Martian Moon Phobos across the Sun

Oct 30, 2024 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the silhouette of Phobos — the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars — as it passed in...

The white edges along these gullies in Mars’ Terra Sirenum are believed to be dusty water ice. Khuller et al. think meltwater could form beneath the surface of this kind of ice, providing a place for possible photosynthesis. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Meltwater beneath Martian Ice Could Support Microbial Life, Researchers Suggest

Oct 17, 2024 by News Staff

On Earth, solar radiation can transmit down to multiple meters within ice, depending on its optical properties. Organisms within ice can harness energy...

This is an artist's impression of an asteroid breaking up. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Most of Earth’s Meteorites Came from Few Asteroid Breakup Events, Research Suggests

Oct 16, 2024 by News Staff

New research shows that approximately 70% of meteorites originate from at least three recent break-ups of massive asteroids. This is an artist’s...

(3122) Florence will pass safely by Earth on September 1, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles. Image credit: University of Colorado.

Earth’s New Mini-Moon is Sign of Tremendous Potential for Space Mining, Scientists Say

Oct 16, 2024 by News Staff

2024 PT5, a new mini-moon of our planet, arrived in Earth’s orbit on September 29, 2024. 2024 PT5 will experience a temporarily captured flyby in...

Europa Clipper lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on October 14, 2024. Image credit: NASA / Kim Shiflett.

NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft Launches to Jupiter’s Icy Moon

Oct 14, 2024 by News Staff

Europa Clipper lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on October 14, 2024 to begin a six-year journey to Jupiter’s...

Simon et al. measured the Great Red Spot’s size, shape, brightness, color, and vorticity over one full oscillation cycle. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is Wobbling and Fluctuating in Size, Hubble Observations Show

Oct 14, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed Jupiter’s most distinctive feature, the Great Red Spot, with on eight dates over a single,...

An artist’s concept of an early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface. Image credit: NASA / MAVEN / Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Carbonate Minerals from Gale Crater Shed Light on Ancient Martian Climate

Oct 8, 2024 by News Staff

Carbonate minerals are of particular interest in paleoenvironmental research as they are an integral part of the carbon and water cycles, both of which...

This illustration shows the distribution of permanently shadowed regions (in blue) on the Moon poleward of 80 degrees south latitude. They are superimposed on a digital elevation map of the lunar surface (gray) from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / Timothy P. McClanahan.

Lunar Ice Deposits are More Extensive than Previously Thought

Oct 3, 2024 by News Staff

Prior studies found signs of ice in the permanently shadowed regions near the south pole of the Moon, including areas within Cabeus, Haworth, Shoemaker...

The center of this infographic shows the sharpest-ever image of the cloud of charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field, while the insets show measurements of high-energy ions and electrons detected along the JUICE’s flyby route. Image credit: ESA / NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Josh Diaz.

JUICE Captures Sharpest Ever Image of Earth’s Radiation Belt

Oct 2, 2024 by News Staff

In August 2024, ESA’s JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (JUICE) made history with a daring Moon-Earth flyby and double gravity assist maneuver. As the spacecraft...

Darren Williams & Michael Zugger examined the concept of collision-less binary exchange for capturing massive satellites -- comparable to and larger than the Moon -- around terrestrial-mass objects either inside or outside the Solar System.

Young Earth May Have Captured Moon from Space, Research Suggests

Oct 2, 2024 by News Staff

The Moon may have been captured during a close encounter between a young Earth and a terrestrial binary (a system of the Moon and another rocky object),...

Protopapa et al. detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide spectral signatures on Charon using Webb telescope observations (white), which extend the wavelength coverage of previous New Horizons flyby measurements (pink). Image credit: S. Protopapa / SwRI / NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / JHUAPL.

Webb Detects Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen Peroxide on Charon’s Surface

Oct 1, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected carbon dioxide...

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.

Ceres is Former Ocean World, Planetary Scientists Say

Sep 27, 2024 by News Staff

Ceres is a key object in understanding the evolution of small bodies and is the only dwarf planet to have been orbited by a spacecraft, NASA’s Dawn mission....

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