Space Exploration News

Scientists Unravel Mystery of High-Latitude Theta Aurora

Theta aurora over Antarctica. This image obtained in 1983 shows the auroral oval and a transpolar arc; the arc extends into the polar cap from local midnight, across the polar cap and joins with the auroral oval at local noon; motion of the transpolar arc in the dawn-dusk direction appears to be controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field along the dawn-dusk direction. Image credit: Dynamics Explorer-1 / University of Iowa.
Dec 19, 2014 by News Staff

Thanks to data collected by ESA’s Cluster spacecraft and a NASA mission called the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), scientists have solved a long-standing space mystery – the origin of a colorful display in the night sky known as the theta aurora. Theta aurora over Antarctica. This image obtained in 1983 shows the auroral oval and a transpolar arc; the arc extends into the polar cap from local midnight, across...

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Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Curiosity Finds Methane, Organic Molecules on Mars

Dec 17, 2014 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has detected methane in the Martian atmosphere around it and several organic molecules in a rock sample from its landing...

A color image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko composed of three images taken by Rosetta's scientific imaging system OSIRIS in the red, green and blue filters; the images were taken on August 6, 2014 from a distance of 120 km from the comet. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS / OSIRIS Team / UPD /LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.

New Image Shows True Colors of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Dec 13, 2014 by News Staff

The European Space Agency has released a color image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the prime target of the Rosetta space mission – as it...

This graph displays the different values of the deuterium/ hydrogen ratio in water observed in various objects in the Solar System: the data points are grouped by color as planets and moons (blue), chondritic meteorites from the asteroid belt (grey), comets originating from the Oort cloud (purple) and Jupiter family comets (pink). Rosetta’s Jupiter-family comet is highlighted in yellow. Diamonds represent data obtained in situ; circles represent data obtained by astronomical methods. Image credit: ESA / ATG medialab / Rosetta / NavCam / Altwegg et al.

Rosetta Data Suggest Earth’s Oceans Likely Came from Asteroids

Dec 11, 2014 by News Staff

The Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument aboard ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has found that the composition of the...

This two-dimensional X-ray diffraction pattern for the John Klein mudstone sample reveals the presence of more than a dozen minerals. Image credit: Bish, D. et al.

X-Ray Diffraction Helps Identify Dozen Martian Minerals

Dec 9, 2014 by News Staff

An international team of scientists led by Dr David Bish of Indiana University has analyzed recent data from the CheMin, a miniaturized X-ray diffraction...

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.

New Study Sheds More Light on Mystery of Titan Sand Dunes

Dec 9, 2014 by News Staff

Titan is one of the few bodies in the Solar System known to have fields of wind-blown dunes on its surface. A new study published in the journal Nature...

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 Strong Evidence of Ancient Lake on Mars

Dec 9, 2014 by News Staff

Mount Sharp – a mountain on Mars and the primary target of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity – was built by sediments deposited in a large...

This is an artist's impression of the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Dawn Spacecraft Sees Ceres

Dec 8, 2014 by News Staff

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has just returned its first photo of the dwarf planet Ceres, taken from 1.2 million kilometers away. Dawn spacecraft captured...

This is an artist's concept of NASA's New Horizons during its planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon: the craft's miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments would characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail; the spacecraft's most prominent design feature is a nearly 2.1-m dish antenna, through which it would communicate with Earth from as far as 7.5 billion km away. Image credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / JHUAPL / SwRI.

NASA’s New Horizons Probe Wakes Up for Pluto Encounter

Dec 8, 2014 by News Staff

After a voyage of nine years and five billion kilometers, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is literally on Pluto’s doorstep, on schedule, in good health,...

The circular mound spotted by NASA scientists is in Athabasca Valles, north-central Elysium Planitia, Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Strange Circular Mound in Athabasca Valles on Mars Puzzles NASA Scientists

Dec 5, 2014 by News Staff

NASA scientists using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have captured an image of...

Hellas Chaos stretches roughly 200 km north–south and for about 500 km in an east–west direction. It shows a variety of landforms, from large impact craters containing wind-blown dunes or flat-topped mesas, to ridges and troughs with rough knobs of material protruding from the surface. The region is also dusted with carbon dioxide frost. North is to the right and west is at the top. The image was captured by Mars Express on 23 January 2014. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Focuses on Frost-Covered Hellas Chaos

Dec 3, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists using the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft have captured a stunning new image of Hellas Chaos, a large region...

The near-Earth space environment is a complex interaction between the magnetic field of our planet, cool plasma moving up from its ionosphere, and hotter plasma coming in from the solar wind. Image credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.

Scientists Discover Impenetrable Barrier 11,500 km above Earth

Nov 27, 2014 by News Staff

A group of researchers headed by Prof Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has discovered a nearly...

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.

NASA Scientists Release Remastered Image of Europa

Nov 22, 2014 by News Staff

A new view of Europa, the sixth of Jupiter’s moons and the fourth largest, has been produced from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft...

The Philae lander at work on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.

Philae Records Sound of Landing, Conducts Experiments on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Nov 20, 2014 by News Staff

An instrument called SESAME-CASSE aboard Rosetta’s 100-kg Philae lander has recorded the sound of touchdown – in the form of vibrations detected...

Global geologic map of Vesta, showing the spatial distribution of major types of materials. Image credit: D.A. Williams et al.

Scientists Create Global Geologic Map of Asteroid Vesta

Nov 18, 2014 by News Staff

An international group of planetary scientists has produced the first global geologic and tectonic map of Vesta, and constructed the geologic time scale...

This is an artist’s impression of habitable Mars (Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Volcanic Eruptions May Have Triggered Episodic Water Flow on Ancient Mars

Nov 18, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists from Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Brown University suggest that water flow and warm temperatures on early Mars were likely related...

The OSIRIS narrow-angle camera aboard Rosetta spots the Philae probe drifting across Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko; the time of each of image is marked on the corresponding insets and is in GMT (EDT+5, PDT+8, CET-1). Credit: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA.

Rosetta Images Follow Philae’s Historic Comet Landing

Nov 17, 2014 by News Staff

New images released by the European Space Agency (ESA) show the journey of Philae as it approached and then rebounded from its first touchdown on Comet...

Magnetic field lines weave through the cloud of dusty gas surrounding the young Sun; in the foreground are asteroids and chondrules, the building blocks of chondrite meteorites. Image credit: Hernan Canellas / MIT Paleomagnetism Laboratory.

Strong Magnetic Fields Recorded in Meteorite Provide Clues to How Early Solar System Evolved

Nov 17, 2014 by News Staff

Scientists working on a primitive meteorite known as Semarkona have found evidence that the protoplanetary disk of the early Solar System was shaped by...

Philae at work on the comet. Image credit: ESA / AOES Medialab.

Philae Lander Goes into ‘Idle Mode’

Nov 16, 2014 by News Staff

Rosetta’s Philae lander has completed its primary science mission after two days on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. With its batteries depleted...

Philae is safely on the surface of the comet, as this image confirms; one of the lander's three feet can be seen in the foreground. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / Philae / CIVA.

Rosetta Mission’s Philae Probe Lands on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Nov 13, 2014 by News Staff

European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission has landed its Philae probe on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The signal confirming the successful...

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