Space Exploration News

The Reiner Gamma formation is a well known lunar swirl region, due to its nearside location. Swirls are described by curving, diffuse bright patterns, which are interspersed with darker lanes. These anomalous albedo patterns are associated with local magnetic anomalies of varying intensities; swirl complexes are often extensive and may stretch across thousands of kilometers, well beyond localized magnetic anomalies. Image credit: NASA / LPI.

Comet Collisions Could Explain Formation of Mysterious Lunar Swirls

Jun 3, 2015 by News Staff

Comet impacts over the past 100 million years can account for many of the features in the mysterious lunar swirls – wispy bright regions scattered...

This image is part of a sequence taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on May 23, from a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 km). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dawn Spacecraft Gets Close-Up View of Ceres’ Surface

Jun 2, 2015 by News Staff

This picture of the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres was taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from a range of about 3,200 miles (5,100 km) on 23 May 2015. This...

Rosetta’s continued study of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has revealed an unexpected process at work close to the comet nucleus. Image credit: ESA / ATG medialab / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA / Feldman et al / NavCam / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

ESA’s Rosetta Spacecraft Makes Unexpected Discovery

Jun 2, 2015 by News Staff

Observations of the inner coma of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with the Alice far-ultraviolet spectrograph onboard ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft reveal...

This image was captured by the Mars Express orbiter on November 19, 2014. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Sees Strange Craters in Arabia Terra

Jun 2, 2015 by News Staff

This new image from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows bluish wind-blown deposits inside eroded craters in the Arabia Terra region of Mars. This image...

Cassini passed Hyperion on 31 May 2015 at a distance of about 21,000 miles (34,000 km). Mission scientists expect images from the encounter to arrive on Earth within 1-2 days. This view of the moon was obtained during Cassini’s flyby on 26 September 2005. It reveals crisp details across the strange, tumbling moon’s surface. Differences in color could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Makes Close Flyby of Hyperion

Jun 1, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini space probe performed a close flyby of Saturn’s irregularly shaped moon Hyperion on 31 May 2015. Cassini passed Hyperion on 31 May 2015...

This artist’s rendition shows the InSight Mars lander spacecraft on the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

InSight: NASA Engineers Begin Testing Next Mars Lander

May 28, 2015 by News Staff

NASA engineers have begun testing a car-sized Mars lander, dubbed InSight, scheduled to launch in 2016. This artist’s rendition shows the InSight Mars...

This image of the dwarf planet Pluto was taken May 12. Image credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI.

New Horizons Captures New Images of Pluto and Charon

May 28, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has beamed back its best-yet images of the dwarf planet Pluto and Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. This image, taken May...

Based on new evidence from Jupiter's moon Europa, astronomers hypothesize that chloride salts bubble up from the icy moon's global liquid ocean and reach the frozen surface where they are bombarded with sulfur from volcanoes on Jupiter's innermost large moon, Io (NASA / JPL-Caltech)

NASA Selects Science Instruments for Europa Clipper Mission

May 27, 2015 by News Staff

NASA has announced the selection of science instruments for the Europa Clipper, a future mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Based on new evidence from...

The Siloe Patera structure lies close to the center of this image within the Arabia Terra region of Mars. The image was acquired by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on November 26, 2014. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express May Have Discovered Ancient Supervolcano on Red Planet

May 25, 2015 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has captured an image of what appears to be the remains of an ancient supervolcano. The image was taken on 26 November 2014,...

A close-up of the mysterious bright spots on Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dawn Captures Sharpest Image Yet of Mysterious Bright Spots on Ceres

May 22, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has beamed back a stunning new picture of the mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. A close-up of the mysterious...

Mimas, to the upper-right of Saturn, has been brightened by a factor of 2 for visibility. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures New Images of Saturn, Its Two Moons

May 19, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has returned stunning new images of Saturn and its two moons, Janus and Mimas. This image shows Saturn’s moon Janus. Image...

Image of the boulders taken by the Rosetta spacecraft on September 19, 2014 from a distance of about 18 miles (29 km). Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS / OSIRIS Team / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.

Strange Balancing Boulders Discovered on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

May 19, 2015 by News Staff

Rosetta mission scientists have discovered an unusual geological formation in the Aker region on the large lobe of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Image of...

Hydra (red), Nix (yellow), Kerberos (orange), Styx (green) and their orbits. Image credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI.

New Horizons Captures Pluto’s Small Moons

May 13, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has captured images of four small moons of Pluto – Hydra, Nix, Kerberos and Styx. Hydra (red), Nix (yellow), Kerberos...

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.

Europa: Dark Material on Jupiter’s Moon Could Be Oceanic Salt Discolored by Radiation

May 13, 2015 by News Staff

A new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters suggests the dark material on the surface of Europa – the sixth-closest moon of the planet...

In this new image of Ceres from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, the brightest spots within a crater in the planet’s northern hemisphere are revealed to be composed of many smaller spots. However, their exact nature remains unknown. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dawn Captures Best-Ever View of Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots

May 11, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Dawn probe has returned the sharpest images ever seen of the mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. The images were taken 8,400 miles...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this beautiful view of nightfall on the Red Planet on April 15, 2015. The red surface coloring of Mars is due to oxidized iron. At certain times of the Martian year, great dust storms occur; the large amounts of dust in the atmosphere during these storms absorb much of the incoming radiation from the Sun; this causes large temperature inversions in the Martian atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Spies Sunset on Mars

May 11, 2015 by News Staff

This awesome-looking time-lapse sequence of the Martian sunset was created by piecing together images taken by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. NASA’s...

Color differences on Mercury are subtle, but they reveal important information about the nature of the planet’s surface material. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

Magnetic Field of Planet Mercury about 4 Billion Years Old

May 8, 2015 by News Staff

New data from NASA’s MESSENGER orbiter suggest that Mercury’s magnetic field is 3.7 – 3.9 billion years old. This image was taken on January...

This color view of Enceladus was taken by Cassini spacecraft on 31 January 2011, from a distance of 50,330 miles (NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / G. Ugarković).

Cassini Revealing More Details about Enceladus

May 7, 2015 by News Staff

Two new studies using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal the pH of water spewing from a geyser-like plume on Enceladus, and suggest that much...

A long solar filament erupted on the Sun on April 28-29, 2015. Image credit: ESA / NASA / SOHO.

NASA’s SOHO Sees Huge Filament Erupt on Sun

May 5, 2015 by News Staff

On April 28-29, 2015 a massive filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun’s atmosphere erupted into space in a large burst of bright...