Space Exploration News

Experts Debate Our Duty and Ability to Spread Life around the Cosmos

Sep 9, 2016 by James Romero

The technology to ‘seed’ planets well beyond our solar system with basic life forms, skipping billions of years of evolution on Earth and spreading...

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid. Image credit: NASA.

OSIRIS-REx Begins Its Journey to Asteroid Bennu

Sep 9, 2016 by News Staff

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft blasted-off at 7:05 p.m. EDT Thursday...

An artist concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / Goddard.

NASA Launching Probe to Asteroid Bennu: Watch Live

Sep 8, 2016 by News Staff

An artist concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / Goddard. NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith...

Rosetta NavCam image taken on 14 March 2015 at 85.7 km from the center of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko; it has been cleaned to remove the more obvious bad pixels and cosmic ray artefacts, and intensities have been scaled. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Rosetta Finds Solid Organic Matter in Dust Particles from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Sep 8, 2016 by News Staff

ESA’s Rosetta orbiter has made the first unambiguous detection of solid organic matter in dust grains ejected by comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This...

Snowcapped mountains in the southernmost part of Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Finds Methane Snow-Capped Mountains near Pluto’s South Polar Region

Sep 6, 2016 by News Staff

A new close-up image from NASA’s New Horizons robotic spacecraft reveals snowcapped mountains in the southernmost part of Pluto. Snowcapped mountains...

The ratio of volatile elements in Earth’s mantle suggests that virtually all of the planet’s life-giving carbon came from a collision with an embryonic planet about 100 million years after Earth formed. Image credit: A. Passwaters / Rice University / NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Proto-Earth Collided with Mercury-Like Planetary Embryo about 4.4 Billion Years Ago

Sep 6, 2016 by News Staff

In a new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers offer a new answer to a long-debated question: how did carbon-based life develop on Earth,...

Close-up of the Philae comet lander, imaged by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on September 2 from a distance of 1.7 miles (2.7 km). Several of the lander’s instruments are identified, including one of the CIVA panoramic imaging cameras, the SD2 drill and SESAME-DIM (Surface Electric Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment Dust Impact Monitor). Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / OSIRIS Team / MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.

Philae Comet Lander Finally Found

Sep 5, 2016 by News Staff

ESA’s Rosetta orbiter has spotted Philae hidden in a dark crack on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Philae has been identified in Rosetta’s...

Juno Sends Back Incredible New Images of Jupiter

Sep 3, 2016 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has beamed back the most detailed images yet of the Solar System’s king of the planets, Jupiter. This montage of ten JunoCam...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Scientists use false color to examine differences in surface materials. The color blue on Ceres is generally associated with bright material, found in more than 130 locations, and seems to be consistent with salts. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Six Studies Provide New Insights into Dwarf Planet Ceres

Sep 2, 2016 by News Staff

Researchers on the Dawn mission released a series of six groundbreaking papers on the dwarf planet Ceres today in the journal Science. The new results...

In this image of Phobos, red arrows indicate a chain of small craters whose origin researchers were able to trace back to a primary impact at a large crater known as Grildrig. Image credit: M. Nayak & E. Asphaug / ESA / Mars Express.

Researchers Solve Mystery of Anomalous Grooves on Phobos

Sep 2, 2016 by News Staff

Anomalous grooves on Phobos, the larger of the two Martian moons, are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface...

Earth-Moon system. Image credit: Comfreak.

Moon Mission Could Reveal the Story of Earth’s Journey around the Milky Way

Sep 1, 2016 by James Romero

A researcher’s proposal for an ESA mission to return to the Moon could lay the groundwork for a full-surface geological survey from a permanent lunar...

This false-color image, taken at 00:06 UTC on July 14, 2016 by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows the Kuiper Belt object Quaoar. This composite image includes 24 individual LORRI images. In addition to many background stars, two galaxies (IC 1048 and UGC 09485) are also visible in this image. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Snaps Images of Kuiper Belt Object ‘Quaoar’

Sep 1, 2016 by Natali Anderson

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has transmitted a series of images of a Kuiper Belt object known as Quaoar. This false-color image, taken at 00:06 UTC...

Jupiter’s north polar region is coming into view as Juno approaches Jupiter. This image was taken on August 27, when the spacecraft was 437,000 miles (703,000 km) away. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Completes Its First Flyby of Jupiter

Aug 29, 2016 by News Staff

On August 27, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully performed its first of 36 close flybys of the giant planet Jupiter. Jupiter’s north polar region...

This image of Jupiter was taken on August 23, when Juno was 2.8 million miles (4.4 million km) from the gas giant on the inbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. The image is a color composite taken with JunoCam’s visible red, green, and blue filters. Bright features like the planet’s Great Red Spot are higher in the atmosphere, and so have less of their light absorbed by the methane. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft to Make First Close Flyby of Jupiter

Aug 26, 2016 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will get closer to the cloud tops of Jupiter on Saturday, August 27. The flyby is expected to provide preliminary science data. This...

This dramatic outburst from the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko occured on February 19, 2016. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team / MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.

ESA’s Rosetta Orbiter Captures Outburst from Nucleus of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Aug 25, 2016 by News Staff

In February 2016, nine instruments onboard ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft serendipitously observed an outburst of gas and dust from the Atum region on Comet...

Map showing distribution of inverted channels (black lines) and valley networks (white lines) in Arabia Terra, Mars. Many of the inverted channels (e.g., southwest region of study area) are not associated with valley networks. Background image is Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter gridded topographic map. Image credit: J.M. Davis et al.

Planetary Researchers Find Evidence of Ancient River Systems in Mars’ Arabia Terra

Aug 23, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of scientists led by University College London researcher Joel Davis has identified over 10,500 miles (17,000 km) of ancient river...

Close Encounters between Centaurs and Gas Giants Form Our Solar System’s ‘Pinky Rings’

Aug 19, 2016 by James Romero

Our gas giants strip the icy surface off minor planets to form miniature versions of Saturn’s famous rings throughout the outer solar system, according...

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 Solar System’s First Habitable Planet

Aug 15, 2016 by News Staff

Venus today is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius) and an atmosphere 90 times as thick...

Cassini caught the sunlight glinting off Titan's seas and lakes filled with liquid methane or ethane. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / University of Idaho.

Cassini Spots Liquid Methane-Filled Canyons on Titan

Aug 11, 2016 by Natali Anderson

Liquid methane-filled canyons hundreds to thousands of feet deep etch the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, according to researchers with NASA’s Cassini...