Space Exploration News

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.

Why Dunes on Saturn’s Moon Titan Point to East

Apr 14, 2015 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience explains why the sand dunes of Titan run in parallel lines from the west to the east. The moons...

This color map of Ceres was created from images taken by the Dawn spacecraft during its initial approach to the dwarf planet. Images taken using blue, green and infrared spectral filters were combined to create the map; the filters were assigned to color channels in reverse order, compared to natural color. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA /MPS / DLR / IDA.

NASA Releases Color Map of Ceres

Apr 13, 2015 by News Staff

NASA scientists using the framing camera aboard the Dawn spacecraft have created the first color map of the dwarf planet Ceres. This color map of Ceres...

Gale crater is 155 km in diameter and now holds a layered mountain rising about 5 km above the crater floor. This illustration depicts a lake of water partially filling the crater. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / UA / Sci-News.com.

Curiosity Finds Evidence for Night-Time Brines in Gale Crater on Mars

Apr 13, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of scientists, led by Dr Javier Martin-Torres of the Spanish Research Council in Spain and the Lulea University of Technology in...

This is an artist's depiction of a catastrophic collision between two celestial bodies; such an impact between the proto-Earth and Theia likely formed the Moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Researchers Cast New Light on Moon’s Formation

Apr 9, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists at the University of Maryland believe an Earth-Theia collision far more violent than previously thought could explain how the Earth’s Moon...

Mars has massive water glacier belts at its central latitudes. Image credit: Nanna Karlsson / Mars Digital Image Model / NASA.

Planetary Scientists Calculate Volume of Water Ice in Martian Glacier Belts

Apr 8, 2015 by News Staff

A team of planetary scientists led by Dr Nanna Bjørnholt Karlsson from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, has calculated the total volume of water...

We’ll Find Evidence of Alien Life within Next Two Decades, Top NASA Scientist Says

Apr 8, 2015 by News Staff

According to NASA chief scientist Dr Ellen Stofan, in the next twenty years, scientists may very well finally answer whether we are alone in the Solar...

This view from Curiosity rover’s Mastcam shows a network of 2-tone mineral veins at the Garden City area on lower Mount Sharp, Mars. This is a mosaic combining 28 images taken with Mastcam’s right-eye camera, which has a telephoto lens with a focal length of 100 mm. The component images were taken on March 18, 2015, during the 929th Martian day of Curiosity’s work on the Red Planet. The color has been approximately white-balanced to resemble how the scene would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Spots Intriguing Mineral Veins on Mars

Apr 2, 2015 by News Staff

This March 18, 2015, view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity rover shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called Garden...

This mosaic image from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is centered at 9 degrees north latitude, 254 degrees west longitude. The image was acquired at a distance of about 57,800 km from Rhea. This image represents one of the highest resolution color views of the icy moon released to date, and consists of multiple images from Cassini’s narrow-angle camera (NAC) with data from the wide-angle camera used to fill in areas where NAC data was not available. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Zeroes in on Saturn’s Icy Moon Rhea

Mar 31, 2015 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft has captured the best images so far of Rhea, the fourteenth of Saturn’s known moons. This mosaic image from...

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

Cometary Carbon Painted Planet Mercury Black, Says Study

Mar 31, 2015 by News Staff

Carbon from cometary material that bombards Mercury, the first planet from the Sun, may be the reason the planet’s surface is heavily dark, says new...

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 Detects Molecular Nitrogen at 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Mar 23, 2015 by News Staff

The Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument on ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has made the first measurement of molecular...

Martian aurora is similar to Earth’s Aurora borealis but has a different origin. Image credit: University of Colorado.

NASA’s MAVEN Orbiter Detects Ultraviolet Aurora on Mars

Mar 18, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists using the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft have observed...

Map of magnesium/silicon abundance ratio across Mercury’s surface - red indicates high values, blue low. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Scientists Create Global-Scale Maps of Mercury Chemistry

Mar 18, 2015 by News Staff

Researchers using data from NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission have created global-scale maps of...

Earhart Crater: Newly-Discovered Lunar Crater Named after Legendary American Pilot

Mar 18, 2015 by News Staff

Planetary scientists using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission have discovered a 124-mile-wide crater on the nearside...

This close-up image of Saturn’s rings was taken in red light with the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft on January 8, 2015. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s Rings Close Up

Mar 17, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini space probe has captured a close-up view of the beautiful and glamorous rings of Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun. This close-up...

Part of the Cydonia Mensae region on Mars. The image was acquired by the Mars Express orbiter on 19 November 2014. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / IGO / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Mars Express Captures Mysterious Cydonia Mensae

Mar 16, 2015 by News Staff

A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter shows the portion of the Cydonia Mensae, a region that is home to a...

This is an artist’s concept of the Jupiter’s moon Ganymede; two auroral ovals can be seen over northern and southern mid-latitudes. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI / J. Saur, University of Cologne.

Hubble Provides New Evidence for Subsurface Saltwater Ocean on Ganymede

Mar 13, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new evidence for a massive subterranean ocean on Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar...

The X2.2-class flare, March 11, 2015. Image credit: SDO / NASA.

NASA’s SDO Captures X-Class Solar Flare

Mar 12, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an image of a mid-level solar flare on March 11, 2015, seen as a bright flash of light close to the...

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 Finds Evidence for Hydrothermal Activity on Enceladus

Mar 12, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided planetary researchers the first evidence that Enceladus – the sixth-largest of Saturn’s moons –...

Dawn will use its ion propulsion system to change orbits at Ceres, allowing it to observe the dwarf planet from different vantage points. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Finally Arrives at Dwarf Planet Ceres

Mar 6, 2015 by News Staff

After a seven-year cruise, and a one-year successful mission at the giant asteroid 4 Vesta, NASA’s Dawn space probe today successfully entered the orbit...