Space Exploration News

Subsurface Ocean of Enceladus is Rich in Phosphorus, Suggests Study

Phosphorus in the form of orthophosphate (e.g., HPO4-2) is likely abundant in the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus; a soda or alkaline ocean (containing NaHCO3 and/or Na2CO3) inside of Enceladus interacts geochemically with a rocky core; modeling indicates that this interaction promotes the dissolution of phosphate minerals, making orthophosphate readily available to possible life in the ocean; because phosphorus is an essential ingredient for life, this finding bolsters mounting evidence for habitability within this small Saturnian moon. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.
Sep 20, 2022 by News Staff

Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life in our Solar System. Observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show that this small Saturnian moon has an ice-covered water ocean that erupts into space, forming a plume that contains almost all of the basic requirements of terrestrial life. In new research, scientists from the United States, Australia, China and Germany performed geochemical modeling to predict how much the bioessential...

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These craters were formed by a meteoroid impact on Mars on September 5, 2021, the first to be detected by NASA’s InSight lander; taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this enhanced-color image highlights the dust and soil disturbed by the impact in blue in order to make details more visible to the human eye. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Seismic and Acoustic Waves from Meteoroid Impacts on Mars

Sep 20, 2022 by News Staff

The Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure (SEIS) seismometer on NASA’s InSight lander picked up vibrations and sounds from four space rocks that...

This image shows a rocky outcrop called Wildcat Ridge, where NASA’s Perseverance rover extracted two rock cores and abraded a circular patch to investigate the rock’s composition. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS.

Perseverance Detects Organics in New Samples from Martian Jezero Crater

Sep 19, 2022 by News Staff

In 2014, NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence of organic matter in rock-powder samples from Gale crater, and NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected...

Composite of a true color image of Saturn, observed by Cassini in 2016, overlaid with a false color representation of the ultraviolet aurora in the northern hemisphere as observed on August 20, 2017. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute / A. Bader, Lancaster University.

Destroyed Moon Could Explain Saturn’s Young Rings and Present-Day Tilt

Sep 16, 2022 by News Staff

Saturn’s rings — thought to have formed a mere 100 million years ago — are one of the most distinctive planetary features in our Solar System....

An artist’s impression of the MICROSCOPE satellite. Image credit: CNES / David Ducros.

MICROSCOPE Space Mission Confirms Equivalence Principle with Unprecedented Accuracy

Sep 15, 2022 by News Staff

The final results from CNES’ MICROSCOPE (MICROSatellite with Compensated drag for the Observation of the Principle of Equivalence) space mission —...

Images of graphite, lonsdaleite, and diamond in ureilite meteorites: (A) reflected light image showing folded crystalline graphite, with fold morphology defined by graphite cleavage; different shading in the graphite is produced by axial planar kink bands; (B) reflected light image (stacked foci) showing an example of the inherited fold morphology preserved in lonsdaleite; (C) cathodoluminescence map of the same area as (B) indicating different phases of carbon, where the green regions are lonsdaleite and the red areas on the periphery (including the purple dashed circle) are cubic diamond (blue is the cathodoluminescence response from olivine); (D) scanning TEM image of a region cut out of the area indicated by yellow circle in (C), highlighting dark lonsdaleite crystals. Image credit: Tomkins et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2208814119.

Strange Meteoritic Diamonds Came from Mantle of Destroyed Dwarf Planet, Study Says

Sep 13, 2022 by News Staff

Lonsdaleite, a rare hexagonal form of diamond found in ureilite meteorites, formed shortly after an inner solar system dwarf planet collided with a large...

This image, obtained with the Metis instrument onboard ESA’s Solar Orbiter on March 25, 2022, shows the solar corona. Image credit: Telloni et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac8104.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter Observes Magnetic Switchback in Sun’s Corona

Sep 12, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Solar switchbacks are sudden, large radial deflections of the solar wind magnetic field, previously revealed in interplanetary space by NASA spacecraft. This...

This image of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 images taken by the DRACO camera on board NASA’s DART spacecraft on July 27, 2022. Image credit: NASA / JPL / DART Navigation Team.

NASA’s DART Spacecraft Gets First Look at Binary Asteroid Didymos

Sep 7, 2022 by News Staff

The Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) aboard NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has captured...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a portion of the Uzboi-Ladon-Morava outflow system. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Focuses on Holden Basin

Sep 5, 2022 by News Staff

The new images, taken with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) aboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft on April 24, 2022, show the Holden Basin in...

Patchy proton aurora on Mars. Image credit: EMM / EMUS / UAE Space Agency.

MAVEN and EMM Orbiters Observe ‘Patchy’ Proton Aurora on Mars

Aug 31, 2022 by News Staff

Even though Mars does not have a global magnetic field like the Earth, it still possesses multiple kinds of aurora. One of these is proton aurora, which...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Perseverance rover. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Provides Insights into History and Composition of Rocks in Martian Jezero Crater

Aug 26, 2022 by News Staff

According to a series of four papers by the Perseverance science team, the floor of Jezero crater had eroded more than planetary researchers expected....

(A) the Milky Way Galaxy with superimposed spiral arms and geological events: the arm and the Solar System rotate clockwise at different rates; the ‘+’ number denotes the number of times Earth has passed through that arm; (B) model of the Oort cloud showing cometary nuclei; (C) schematic reconstruction of early Earth impact process; (D) early crustal nuclei development. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESO / R. Hurt / Kirkland et al., doi: 10.1130/G50513.1.

Transits through Milky Way’s Spiral Arms Helped Form Early Earth’s Continental Crust, Study Says

Aug 24, 2022 by News Staff

New research led by Curtin University geologists suggests that regions of space with dense interstellar clouds may send more high-energy comets crashing...

The detailed global map of hydrated mineral deposits on Mars; various landing sites and areas of interest are shown; Mawrth Vallis is an ancient water outflow channel that is rich in clays; Oxia Planum is another clay-rich region and has been selected as the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover; Meridiani Planum straddles the Martian equator and was the landing spot for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in 2004; Valles Marineris is one of the largest canyons in the Solar System’ Gale crater and Jezero crater were the landing sites of NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers in 2012 and 2020, respectively. Image credit: ESA / Mars Express / NASA / Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Planetary Scientists Create First Global High-Resolution Map of Martian Aqueous Minerals

Aug 23, 2022 by News Staff

The newly-released map shows the locations and abundances of secondary minerals formed through interaction with water on Mars. It is based on the analysis...

This infographic highlights NASA’s Voyager mission’s major milestones, including visiting the four outer planets and exiting the heliosphere, or the protective bubble of magnetic fields and particles created by the Sun. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Voyagers Mark 45 Years in Space

Aug 20, 2022 by News Staff

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe lifted off on August 20, 1977, quickly followed by its twin, Voyager 1, on September 5. This infographic highlights NASA’s Voyager...

An artist’s impression of the asteroid Polymele. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Trojan Asteroid Polymele Has Small Moon

Aug 17, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Jupiter trojan asteroid 15094 Polymele and its small satellite are among the targets of NASA’s Lucy mission, which will approach the asteroid system...

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.

Study Sheds More Light on Icy Shells of Europa and Other Ocean Worlds

Aug 15, 2022 by News Staff

The underwater snow is known to form in low temperature environments, e.g., beneath ice shelves, on Earth. New research led by University of Texas at Austin...

Giant Meteorite Impacts Played Key Role in Creation of Earth’s Continents

Aug 10, 2022 by News Staff

Earth is the only planet known to have continents, although how they formed and evolved is unclear. An artist’s concept of meteors impacting the ancient...

Since landing on Mars in August 2012, Curiosity has been exploring Mt. Sharp in Gale Crater. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Celebrates Ten Years on Mars

Aug 5, 2022 by News Staff

NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully landed in Gale Crater on Mars on August 5, 2012, to search for evidence that the Red Planet could once have supported...

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)...

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