1.6 billion stars. 11.4 million galaxies. 158,000 asteroids. One spacecraft. The European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory, which launched in 2013, has long surpassed its goal of charting more than…
Category: Planetary Science
Samples of the asteroid Ryugu are scientists’ purest pieces of the solar system
Samples of the asteroid Ryugu are the most pristine pieces of the solar system that scientists have in their possession. A new analysis of Ryugu material confirms the porous rubble-pile…
Ice at the moon’s poles might have come from ancient volcanoes
Four billion years ago, lava spilled onto the moon’s crust, etching the man in the moon we see today. But the volcanoes may have also left a much colder legacy:…
These are the first plants grown in moon dirt
That’s one small stem for a plant, one giant leap for plant science. In a tiny, lab-grown garden, the first seeds ever sown in lunar dirt have sprouted. This small…
NASA’s InSight lander has recorded the largest Marsquake yet
Any Martians out there should learn to duck and cover. On May 4, the Red Planet was rocked by a roughly magnitude 5 temblor, the largest Marsquake detected to date,…
Lava and frost may form the mysterious lumps on Jupiter’s moon Io
On Jupiter’s moon Io, lava creeping beneath frost may give rise to fields of towering dunes. That finding, described April 19 in Nature Communications, suggests that dunes may be more…
U.S. planetary scientists want to explore Uranus and Enceladus next
The continuing search for life beyond Earth is driving many of the priorities for what’s next when it comes to U.S. planetary exploration. In a new report that could shape…
Europa may have much more shallow liquid water than scientists thought
Europa’s frozen surface is covered with distinctive pairs of ridges that straddle troughs of ice. These double ridges are the most common features on the Jovian moon. But scientists don’t…
Here’s how NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has spent 1 year on Mars
One year ago, Ingenuity took its first flight on Mars. And its story since is that of a real-world little helicopter that could. Ingenuity traveled to the Red Planet attached…
This is the biggest known comet in our solar system
The nucleus of a comet discovered in 2014 is the largest ever spotted. The “dirty snowball” at the center of comet C/2014 UN271 is about 120 kilometers across, researchers report…
