Jul 29, 2025 by News Staff

Radiolysis induced by Galactic cosmic rays could provide a viable energy source for microbial metabolism in the subsurface environments of rocky planetary...

Dec 30, 2024 by News Staff

In a new paper, planetary researchers from Texas A&M University and the University of Washington introduce a new thermodynamic concept called the centotectic...

Nov 27, 2024 by NASA

NASA’s Europa Clipper — the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission — is already 20 million km (13 million miles)...

Nov 7, 2024 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, TU Delft, and Caltech has developed a new method to compute...

Oct 14, 2024 by News Staff

Europa Clipper lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on October 14, 2024 to begin a six-year journey to Jupiter’s...

Aug 27, 2024 by News Staff

Using data gathered by the Advanced Stellar Compass (ASC) and the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) onboard NASA’s Juno orbiter, scientists have produced...

Jul 18, 2024 by News Staff

Europa and Enceladus are key targets to search for evidence of alien life in our Solar System. However, the surface and shallow subsurface of these airless...

Jun 25, 2024 by News Staff

Ocean worlds are planetary bodies that have a liquid ocean, often under an icy shell or within the rocky interior. In our own Solar System, several moons...

Mar 12, 2024 by News Staff

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a triangular metal plate with a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s...

Mar 4, 2024 by News Staff

Using data from the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have calculated the...

Dec 15, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers from NASA and the University of Washington have estimated total internal heating rates and depths to possible subsurface oceans for 17 planets...

Dec 5, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in the Solar System, identified by NASA as the second-highest priority site for a flagship mission in...

Sep 22, 2023 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy moon Europa has an ocean beneath a crust of water ice. Solid carbon dioxide has previously been observed on the surface, but the source...

Jun 19, 2023 by News Staff

Many planetary scientists studying Jupiter’s moon Europa assumed that it formed with a metallic core during or shortly after accretion. New research...

Apr 17, 2023 by News Staff

Intense tectonism is evident on many outer solar system satellites — such as Ganymede, Europa, and Enceladus — with some surface regions showing...

Apr 17, 2023 by News Staff

ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, the JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (JUICE), lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French...

Mar 23, 2023 by News Staff

The radar properties of icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn commonly differ by more than an order of magnitude from those of rocky planets because of...

Mar 14, 2023 by News Staff

The subsurface ocean of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is heated from below via tidal heating and radioactive decay of the rocky interior, while being cooled...

Feb 21, 2023 by News Staff

University of Washington researcher Baptiste Journaux and colleagues believe the newly-created substances could form at the surface and bottom of deep...

Oct 14, 2022 by News Staff

New videos captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter show the rare moment of the Martian moon Deimos passing...