Space Exploration News

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Methane Gas May Have Caused Greenhouse Effect on Young Mars, Planetary Researchers Say

Jan 25, 2017 by News Staff

Methane present in the early Martian atmosphere, together with carbon dioxide and hydrogen may have created a greenhouse effect on the planet 3.5-4.5 billion...

Cross section of Ceres showing the surface layers that are the subject of this study plus a watery mantle and a rocky-metallic core. The column of material at and just below Ceres’ surface (box) – the top layer contains anhydrous (dry) pyroxene dust accumulated from space mixed in with native hydrous (wet) dust, carbonates, and water ice. Image credit: Pierre Vernazza, LAM-CNRS / AMU.

NASA’s SOFIA Observatory Collects New Data on Composition of Dwarf Planet Ceres

Jan 23, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) show that Ceres does not appear to have the carbon-rich surface...

This image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 16, 2017, at a distance of about 17,000 miles (28,000 km) from Daphnis. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Provides New View of Saturn’s Wave-Making Moon Daphnis

Jan 20, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn’s small moon Daphnis and the waves it raises in the surrounding ring material. This image was...

This view of a Martian rock slab called ‘Old Soaker,’ which has a network of cracks that may have originated in drying mud, comes from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. The location is within an exposure of Murray formation mudstone on lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Mud cracks would be evidence of a time more than 3 billion years ago when dry intervals interrupted wetter periods that supported lakes in the area. Several images from Mast Camera’s left-eye camera are combined into this mosaic view. They were taken on Dec. 20, 2016, during the 1,555th sol of Curiosity’s work on Mars. The Old Soaker slab is about 4 feet (1.2 m) long. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Finds Possible Signs of Ancient Drying on Mars

Jan 18, 2017 by News Staff

A grid of small polygons spotted by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover may have originated as cracks in drying mud more than 3 billion years ago, according...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft obtained this image of Mimas on Oct. 22, 2016. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Breathtaking View of Saturn’s Moon Mimas

Jan 16, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This image of Saturn’s seventh largest moon, Mimas, was photographed when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was approximately 115,000 miles (185,000 km) away. NASA’s...

A vast alluvial fan in the XinJiang province of China. The right side is the active part of the fan, and appears blue from water currently flowing in the many small streams. The image was acquired on May 2, 2002. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / METI / ERSDAC / JAROS / US-Japan ASTER Science Team.

Have We Seen Evidence of Titan’s Catastrophic Methane Downpours?

Jan 9, 2017 by James Romero

Attempts to investigate the origin of giant wedge-shaped sedimentary structures on Saturn’s moon Titan using analogues in Death Valley, California has...

In this extended color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, rounded and bizarrely textured mountains, named the Tartarus Dorsa, rise up along Pluto’s day-night terminator and show intricate but puzzling patterns of blue-gray ridges and reddish material in between. This view, roughly 330 miles (530 km) across, combines blue, red and infrared images taken by New Horizons’ Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera on July 14, 2015. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Spots Penitentes in Pluto’s Tartarus Dorsa Region

Jan 6, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Planetary researchers using data from NASA’s New Horizons mission have found evidence of snow and ice features on the dwarf planet Pluto that, until...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dawn Finds New Evidence for Water Ice on Ceres

Dec 28, 2016 by News Staff

Images from NASA’s Dawn probe have revealed a dark, cratered world whose brightest area is made of reflective salts — not water ice. But several...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

More Evidence for Warm, Wet Early Mars

Dec 27, 2016 by News Staff

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets provides new evidence for a warm early Mars that hosted water across a geologically long...

This is one of Cassini’s closest views to date of Pandora, a small, inner moon of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Closes in on Saturn’s Moon Pandora

Dec 26, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

This image from NASA’s Cassini robotic orbiter is one of the highest-resolution views ever taken of Pandora, Saturn’s F ring shepherd moon. This is...

With a diameter of 57 miles (92 km), Occator crater is larger than Tycho crater on the Moon. Its steep walls stand tall at over 1.4 miles (2 km), higher than the North face of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps. The origin and nature of the bright spots in its interior is still not clear. Image credit: DLR.

Fly over Ceres’ Colossal Crater and Bright Spots in Incredible Video

Dec 24, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers from the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, or DLR) have produced...

Hubble’s view of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA.

Teasing Out the Secrets beneath Jupiter’s Cloud Tops

Dec 17, 2016 by James Romero

As NASA’s Juno probe makes its closest flyby of the gas giant, new research from France’s space agency could help make more sense of the data it sends...

Jupiter’s ‘pearl.’ Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Completes Its Third Jupiter Flyby

Dec 14, 2016 by News Staff

On Dec. 11, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully completed its third flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops. Jupiter’s ‘pearl.’ Image...

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the vehicle at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target called ‘Buckskin’ on lower Mount Sharp. The selfie combines several component images taken by Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on Aug. 5, 2015, during 1065 Sol (Martian day) of the rover’s work on Mars. For scale, the rover’s wheels are 20 inches (50 cm) in diameter and about 16 inches (40 cm) wide. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Finds Boron on Martian Surface

Dec 14, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Boron, a metalloid chemical element with properties intermediate between those of carbon and aluminum, has been identified for the first time on the Martian...

Color composite of Phobos taken with TGO’s CaSSIS camera on November 26, 2016. The observation was made at a distance of 4,785 miles (7,700 km). To create the final color image, two images were taken through each of the four color filters of the camera -- panchromatic, blue-green, red and infrared -- and then stitched together and combined to produce the high-resolution composite. Two of the color filters used by CaSSIS lie outside the wavelength response of the human eye, so this is not a ‘true’ color image. However, showing the data as a color representation can reveal details of the surface mineralogy. Different colors are clearly seen, with the bluest part in the direction of the large crater Stickney, which is out of view over the limb to the left. Although the exact composition of the material is unknown, the color differences are thought to be caused by compositional variations on scales of hundreds of feet to several miles. Image credit: ESA.

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter Snaps Color Image of Phobos

Dec 11, 2016 by News Staff

ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has sent back its first color image of Phobos, the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars. Color...

This view from Cassini was obtained about half a day before its first close pass by the outer edges of Saturn’s main rings during its penultimate mission phase. The view shows part of the giant, hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet’s north pole. Each side of the hexagon is about as wide as Earth. A circular storm lies at the center, at the pole. The image was taken with Cassini’s wide-angle camera on Dec. 3, 2016, at a distance of about 240,000 miles (390,000 km) from Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Beams Back Spectacular Images from Its First ‘Ring-Grazing’ Orbit

Dec 9, 2016 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini orbiter has beamed back its first photos of the gas giant Saturn and the planet’s major moons since beginning the so-called ‘ring-grazing’...

A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI.

Saturn’s Moons May Be Younger than Previously Thought

Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

New data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal that Saturn’s moons may be younger than previously thought. A giant of a moon appears before a giant...

Artist rendition of NASA’s TIMED spacecraft. The satellite is orbiting at 388 miles (625 km) and viewing in the anti-sunward limb direction. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s TIMED Satellite Finds Hot Atomic Hydrogen in Earth’s Thermosphere

Dec 7, 2016 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s TIMED satellite, scientists have discovered the existence of hot atomic hydrogen atoms in the thermosphere (from about 56 to 311...

This graphic shows the closest approaches of Cassini’s final two orbital phases. Ring-grazing orbits are shown in gray (at left); Grand Finale orbits are shown in blue. The orange line shows the spacecraft’s Sept. 2017 final plunge into Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Cassini Orbiter Makes Its First ‘Ring-Grazing’ Dive

Dec 6, 2016 by News Staff

On Dec. 4, 2016 at 8:09 a.m. EST (5:09 a.m. PST), NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made its first close dive past the outer edges of Saturn’s rings. This...