Space Exploration News

Planetary Scientists Offer New Explanation for Warm, Wet Ancient Mars

The young Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 m deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have pooled to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’s northern hemisphere, and in some regions reaching depths greater than 1.6 km. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org.
Jan 29, 2025 by News Staff

A team of planetary researchers led by Caltech has determined the chemical mechanisms by which the ancient Mars was able to sustain enough warmth in its early days to host water, and possibly life. Adams et al. estimate that Mars experienced episodic warm periods of an integrated duration of 40 million years, with each event lasting approximately 100,000 years. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO / N. Risinger, skysurvey.org. “It’s been such a puzzle...

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A global scan for organic-rich sites on Ceres using a deep neural network revealed two new sites close to the well-known Ernutet crater. Image credit: Sarkar et al., doi: 10.1029/2024AV001362.

Dwarf Planet Ceres’ Organic Matter Was Originally Delivered by Impactors from Main Belt: Study

Jan 28, 2025 by News Staff

Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt, and the only potential ocean world in the inner Solar System. A global scan for organic-rich sites...

Titan’s abundant atmospheric nitrogen and methane gases are notable characteristics of the moon that may help constrain its origin and evolution. Image credit: SwRI.

New Experiments Shed Light on How Titan Maintains Its Unique Nitrogen-Rich Atmosphere

Jan 27, 2025 by News Staff

Heating of complex organic matter in the presence of water may be an important source of Titan’s abundant atmospheric nitrogen and methane gases, according...

The fragments of the Charlottetown meteorite. Image credit: University of Alberta Meteorite Collection.

Sound of Meteorite Strike Recorded for First Time Ever

Jan 24, 2025 by News Staff

In July 2024, a home security camera in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, captured rare video and sound of a meteorite striking Earth. According...

Two Martian mounds, rising hundreds of meters above the surrounding lowlands, display bright regions rich in clay minerals. Image credit: ESA / TGO / CaSSIS / NASA / JPL / MSSS / Murray Lab.

Thousands of Mounds in Martian Mawrth Vallis Region Were Once Soaked with Water, Scientists Say

Jan 22, 2025 by News Staff

In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, planetary researchers used high-resolution images and compositional data captured by orbiters to...

Hubble’s photo of Jupiter displays the ever-changing landscape of its turbulent atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Michael H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Jovian Clouds Consist of Ammonium Hydrosulfide, Study Suggests

Jan 13, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers have long thought that the upper clouds of Jupiter, which create the planet’s iconic pale brown belts, are made of frozen ammonia. But a...

Pluto and Charon are the largest binary system in the known population of trans-Neptunian objects in the outer Solar System. Their shared external orbital axis suggests a linked evolutionary history and collisional origin. Their radii, 1,200 km and 600 km, respectively, and Charon’s wide circular orbit of about 16 Pluto radii require a formation mechanism that places a large mass fraction into orbit, with sufficient angular momentum to drive tidal orbital expansion. Denton et al. numerically modeled the collisional capture of Charon by Pluto using simulations that include material strength. Image credit: Denton et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01612-0.

Unexpected Mechanism Explains Formation of Pluto-Charon System

Jan 6, 2025 by News Staff

Planetary scientists at the University of Arizona say they have discovered an entirely new type of cosmic collision. Pluto and Charon are the largest binary...

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.

New Study Advances Understanding of Habitability of Ocean Worlds within Solar System and Beyond

Dec 30, 2024 by News Staff

In a new paper, planetary researchers from Texas A&M University and the University of Washington introduce a new thermodynamic concept called the centotectic...

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Parker Solar Probe Survives Closest-Ever Approach to Sun

Dec 30, 2024 by News Staff

On December 24, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe soared just 6.1 million km (3.8 million miles) above the surface of our home star, racing through the...

Frosty scene in the Australe Scopuli region at the south pole of Mars. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Carbon Dioxide Ice Turns Martian Polar Region White

Dec 18, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary scientists using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft have captured stunning images of an enigmatic landscape...

This image of an impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars was taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 30, 2015. The crater is approximately 3,300 feet (1-km) wide and appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. The steep inner slopes are carved by gullies and include possible recurring slope lineae on the equator-facing slopes. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona / Alfred McEwen.

New Study Examines Elusive Nature of Martian Liquid Brines

Dec 18, 2024 by News Staff

Mars is located at the extreme limits of brine stability; and only a combination of the most favorable environmental conditions and lowest eutectic temperature...

Hubble observed Saturn on June 20, 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 808 million miles away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / OPAL Team.

Saturn’s Rings May Be as Old as the Gas Giant Itself: Study

Dec 17, 2024 by News Staff

Saturn’s icy rings could be much older than they appear due to their resistance to pollution from impacts with rocky debris. Hyodo et al. suggest that...

The internal structure of Io as revealed by the present study. Image credit: Sofia Shen / NASA / JPL / Caltech.

Jupiter’s Moon Io Does Not Have Subsurface Magma Ocean, Study Suggests

Dec 13, 2024 by News Staff

Volcanic activity on Io — the innermost Galilean moon of Jupiter and the most volcanically active body in the Solar System — is unlikely to...

This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.

Venus Has Never Been Habitable, New Study Suggests

Dec 9, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary researcher Tereza Constantinou and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge have examined the chemical composition of the Venusian atmosphere...

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.

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

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...

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper shows the spacecraft in silhouette against the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, with the magnetometer boom fully deployed at top and the antennas for the radar instrument extending out from the solar arrays. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft Deploying Its Instruments

Nov 27, 2024 by NASA

NASA’s Europa Clipper — the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission — is already 20 million km (13 million miles)...

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....

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