Space Exploration News

Area of the study: (a) Valles Marineris, Mars, showing the location of the landslide in Coprates Chasma (white box); (b) stereo-derived DEMs; (c and d) study areas within which morphological and morphometric characterization is conducted; burgundy lines: topographic profiles, numbered from proximal to distal edge of the landslide deposit; blue lines: longitudinal ridges; (e) oblique view of the landslide object of the study; red lines represent topographic profiles, numbered from proximal to distal area (following flow direction). Image credit: Magnarini et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12734-0.

Planetary Researchers Analyze Structure of Giant Martian Landslide

Oct 25, 2019 by News Staff

Unusually large and long ridges documented in massive landslides across our Solar System are commonly associated with the presence of ancient ice layers....

Curiosity rover took this selfie on October 11, 2019. The rover drilled twice in this location, nicknamed Glen Etive. Just left of the rover are the two drill holes, called Glen Etive 1 (right) and Glen Etive 2 (left). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Rover Snaps New Selfie on Mars

Oct 25, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity snapped a view of itself and its surroundings on October 11, 2019 (the 2,553rd Martian day, or Sol, of its mission). The...

The moons of our Solar System are brimming with unusual landscapes. However, sometimes they look a little more familiar, as in this new radar image from the Cassini orbiter. The image shows dark streaks carved into dunes reminiscent of those we might find on a beach on Earth, or raked with flowing lines in a Japanese Zen garden — but this scene is actually taking place on Saturn’s moon Titan. While our sand is composed of silicates, the ‘sand’ of these alien dunes is formed from grains of organic materials about the same size as particles of our beach sand. The small size and smoothness of these grains means that the flowing lines carved into the dunes show up as dark to the human eye. While previous images have spotted these eerily familiar patterns on Titan's dunes, this new image (colorized) shows them in greater detail. The image was obtained by Cassini's radar mapper on July 10, 2013. The vertical seam near the center is an artifact of radar image data processing. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sci-News.com.

Researchers Unravel Origin and Chemical Composition of Titan’s Mysterious Dunes

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

Vast longitudinal dunes up to 330 feet (100 m) in height in the equatorial deserts of Saturn’s moon Titan are the Solar System’s most monumental surface...

Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images. Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.

Venus May Never Have Been Wet and Warm World

Oct 16, 2019 by News Staff

A team of planetary researchers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and elsewhere has found that a volcanic flow on Venus’ Ovda Regio highlands...

Wamelink et al were able to harvest radishes and radish seeds, cress and cress seeds, rye seeds, rocket, tomatoes and peas on Mars and Moon soil simulants. This photo shows experimental trays on April 16, 2015, seven days after sowing. Image credit: Wamelink et al, doi: 10.1515/opag-2019-0051.

Tomatoes, Peas and Several Other Crops Grow Well in Simulated Martian and Lunar Dirt

Oct 15, 2019 by Natali Anderson

A new experiment conducted by researchers at the Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands shows that it’s possible to grow crops on Martian...

Lunar Water Ice May Have Multiple Sources, Researchers Say

Oct 11, 2019 by News Staff

Lunar orbiters such as India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently detected water icy on the floor of some...

This image, taken by ESA’s Mars Express on November 16, 2018, shows Nirgal Vallis on Mars. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Spots Ancient River System

Oct 10, 2019 by News Staff

A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express shows the part of Nirgal Vallis, a dried-up river valley on Mars. This...

NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, one in the heliosheath and the other just beyond in interstellar space, took measurements as a solar event known as a global merged interaction region passed by each spacecraft four months apart. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith.

Researchers Measure Pressure in Solar System’s Heliosheath

Oct 9, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, a team of scientists has calculated the total pressure from particles in the outer region of the Solar System,...

Lithology of sulfate enrichments in Gale Crater, Mars: (a) magnesium sulfate-enriched lithology within multiple parallel horizons (red arrows) on a large block of bedrock; (b) calcium sulfate enrichments as erosion-resistant horizons (red arrows) in mudstone; (c) multiple horizons (red arrows) where euhedral white crystals and heterogeneous calcium sulfate and magnesium sulfate enrichments were observed; (d) exposed blocks at Old Soaker with desiccation cracks; circles represent the locations of Curiosity’s ChemCam targets with calcium sulfate enrichments (red) and without (blue); (e, f) close-up images of a mudstone and a sandstone enriched in calcium sulfate; (g) close-up image of bedrock with white euhedral crystals along with empty casts/moulds. Image credit: Rapin et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0458-8.

Salt-Rich Deposits Point to Ancient Briny Ponds in Mars’ Gale Crater

Oct 8, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently discovered rocks enriched in mineral salts within the 3.7-billion-year-old Gale Crater on Mars. According to a new paper...

This artist’s painting of the south polar region of Enceladus shows massive jets of water ice being blasted into space. Image credit: Karl Kofoed / NASA.

Scientists Find Low-Mass Organic Compounds in Ice Grains from Enceladus’ Plume

Oct 3, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is erupting a plume of gas and ice grains from its south pole. According to new research using data from NASA’s Cassini mission,...

NASA’s InSight lander placed its seismometer on Mars on December 19, 2018. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Listen to Sounds of Marsquakes, Strange ‘Dinks and Donks’ on Mars

Oct 2, 2019 by News Staff

The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a highly sensitive seismometer onboard NASA’s InSight lander, was designed to listen for marsquakes....

Potential trajectory for how terraforming, PIPs and other related microbiologically focused methods can be applied in a concerted effort to colonize the Solar System. Image credit: Lopez et al, doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiz127.

Beneficial Microbes Could Help Colonize Mars and Other Planets

Sep 25, 2019 by News Staff

Nova Southeastern University’s Professor Jose Lopez and his colleagues from the University of California Davis and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro...

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 Habitable for Three Billion Years

Sep 23, 2019 by News Staff

The Venusian climate remained stable and temperate for about three billion years, until a mysterious global event resurfaced around 80% of the planet,...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a beautiful slice of the Red Planet from the northern polar cap downwards, and highlights cratered, pockmarked swathes of the Terra Sabaea and Arabia Terra regions. It comprises data gathered on June 17, 2019. This image was created using data from the nadir and color channels of Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera. The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. North is up. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

ESA Releases Mesmerizing New Image of Mars

Sep 23, 2019 by News Staff

The High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured this detailed image of the Red Planet on June 17, 2019. This image from...

Schmitz et al argue that the mid-Ordovician ice age was caused by global cooling, triggered by extra dust in the atmosphere of Earth from the breakup of a giant asteroid in the main asteroid belt. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Dust from Disintegrated Asteroid Triggered Mid-Ordovician Ice Age

Sep 19, 2019 by News Staff

There’s always a lot of extraterrestrial dust floating down to Earth, but this dust is normally only a tiny fraction of the other dust in our atmosphere...

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

Saturn’s Rings are as Old as Solar System Itself, Study Suggests

Sep 18, 2019 by News Staff

The famous ring system of Saturn may be much older than some planetary scientists think, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. NASA’s...

This artist’s concept of a lake at the north pole of Titan illustrates raised rims and rampartlike features such as those seen by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around the moon’s Winnipeg Lacus. New research using Cassini radar data and modeling proposes that lake basins like these are likely explosion craters, which could have formed when liquid molecular nitrogen deposits within the crust warmed and quickly turned to vapor, blowing holes in the moon’s crust. This would have happened during a warming event (or events) that occurred in a colder, nitrogen-dominated period in Titan’s past. The study may provide evidence of these cold periods in Titan’s past, followed by a relative warming to conditions like those of today. Although Titan is frigid compared to Earth, methane in the atmosphere provides a greenhouse effect that warms the moon’s surface. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Titan’s Small Methane-Filled Lakes are Explosion Craters: Study

Sep 11, 2019 by News Staff

Small methane-filled lakes on the surface of Titan were likely formed by explosive, pressurized nitrogen just under the hazy moon’s surface, according...

Scanning electron microscopy image (colorized) showing edscottite in the polished Wedderburn section from the UCLA Meteorite Collection. Image credit: Ma & Rubin, doi: 10.2138/am-2019-7102.

Edscottite: Mineral ‘Never Seen in Nature’ Discovered inside Meteorite

Sep 7, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

A meteorite found in Australia — called the Wedderburn iron meteorite because of where it was found — contains edscottite, an iron-carbide...

A composite image of Venus as seen by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft. Image credit: Institute of Space and Astronautical Science / Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Unidentified ‘Absorbers’ Soak Up Solar Energy in Upper Cloud Layer of Venus

Sep 4, 2019 by News Staff

Venus’ surface has never been seen by the human eye because of opaque, highly reflective clouds which permanently cover the planet. What is curious about...