Space Exploration News

Oct 21, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Titan offers great motivation for the detailed study of organic chemistry in unconventional conditions. Nonpolar hydrocarbons such as ethane and methane exist on this Saturnian moon in plentitude, alongside one of the most prebiotically relevant and polar small molecules in existence — hydrogen cyanide (HCN). New research provides evidence for the intermixing of these exceptionally polar opposites at low temperatures, forming structures that...

Oct 14, 2025 by News Staff

On some of the dune fields on Mars, parallel channels, called linear dune gullies, are found. Contrary to their name these gullies are often highly sinuous....

Oct 14, 2025 by News Staff

Exploring the possibility of the survival of life under extraterrestrial conditions is an important goal of astrobiology. In a new study, scientists used...

Oct 9, 2025 by News Staff

Roughly 4.3 billion years ago, when our Solar System was still in its infancy, a giant asteroid slammed into the far side of the Moon, blasting an enormous...

Oct 7, 2025 by News Staff

The leading hypotheses for the origin of the Moon call for a giant impact event between proto-Earth and a separate impactor called Theia. The efficiency...

Oct 7, 2025 by News Staff

Saturn’s moon Enceladus continuously ejects a plume of ice grains and gases originating from its subsurface ocean via fractures near its south pole....

Oct 6, 2025 by News Staff

The stark contrast between the Moon’s near side and far side in topography, volcanic activity and crustal structure provides critical insights into lunar...

Oct 6, 2025 by News Staff

The newly-discovered mineral, named ferric hydroxysulfate, provides clues about the environment and history of the Red Planet, including the possibility...

Sep 23, 2025 by News Staff

Minerals are the building blocks of rocks, and the types of minerals and their chemistry provide critical information about rock formation and history....

Sep 22, 2025 by News Staff

This water flow occurred on an ancient asteroid more than one billion years after its formation and was probably triggered by an impact that generated...

Sep 19, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope have detected a series of dark, bead-like and asymmetric star-shaped features in the ionosphere...

Sep 18, 2025 by News Staff

Tektites are nearly pure glasses (practically no crystalline inclusions) created when a space rock slams into Earth, melting surface material and hurling...

Sep 17, 2025 by News Staff

The polar vortex is a consequence of Martian seasons, which occur because the planet’s axis is tilted at an angle of 25.2 degrees, according to University...

Sep 17, 2025 by News Staff

The ozone layer is healing and the Antarctic ozone hole in 2024 was smaller than in previous years, according to a new report from the World Meteorological...

Sep 16, 2025 by News Staff

Saturn’s magnetosphere contains trapped plasma and energetic charged particles which constantly irradiate the surface of Enceladus. The plasma consists...

Sep 10, 2025 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover has explored and sampled igneous and sedimentary rocks within Jezero crater to characterize early Martian geological processes...

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found evidence for gaseous methane on the distant dwarf planet Makemake. Reported in...

Sep 4, 2025 by News Staff

Planetary researchers at Southwest Research Institute has completed a study detailing how a proposed spacecraft could fly by an interstellar comet, providing...

Sep 4, 2025 by News Staff

Jupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular aurorae in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet...

Sep 1, 2025 by News Staff

Using data collected by sensors on the U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program Satellite 6 (STP-Sat6) in geostationary orbit, scientists have found...