Venus is well known for its rotating upper atmosphere, which sweeps around the planet once every 4 Earth days. This is in stark contrast to the rotation...
Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered four exoplanets orbiting TOI-2076 and TOI-1807, a pair of related...
In 2020, planetary scientists detected small amounts of the biosignature gas phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope...
The Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) chemistry lab onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected atmospheric methane...
The recent suggestion of phosphine gas in the atmosphere of Venus has regenerated interest in the idea of life in clouds; however, such analyses usually...
Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a temperate, Neptune-sized planet orbiting the M-dwarf star TOI-1231.
An...
In March 2021, NASA’s Curiosity rover observed clouds made of carbon dioxide (CO2) ice at high altitudes in the atmosphere of Mars.
Curiosity captured...
Jupiter, Saturn and numerous giant exoplanets discovered to date consist mostly of hydrogen and helium. In 1977, planetary scientists predicted the existence...
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have produced a detailed map of intensity and abundance of gaseous hydrogen cyanide...
Atmospheric oxygen is thought to have played a vital role in the evolution of complex multicellular organisms. The so-called oxygen control hypothesis...
Three images of Jupiter from the 8-m Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North telescope at the Gemini Observatory and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope show...
Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite have discovered a sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting TOI-220, a bright and old K-type dwarf...
On July 11, 2020, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe made its third flyby of Venus. During 7 min around the closest approach, one of the spacecraft’s scientific...
Mars is cold today but once had water lakes and flowing rivers. The early warm climate cannot be explained by basic models of the early Mars greenhouse...
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter took off at 4:31 a.m. EDT (1:31 a.m. PDT), or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, on April 25, 2021, rising 5 m (16 feet); then it...
On April 20, 2021, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover converted some of carbon...
Lasting 51.9 seconds, Ingenuity’s experimental flight on April 22, 2021, added several new challenges to its first flight, including a higher maximum...
Mars had drier and wetter eras before drying up completely in the Hesperian period, about 3 billion years ago, according to an analysis of observational...
On April 19, 2021, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made history, hovering above Jezero Crater on Mars, demonstrating that powered, controlled flight on another...
