SwRI scientists have determined that at the rate Titan’s orbit is changing, it should have acquired a circular orbit within about 350 million years. The fact that Titan currently has…
Category: Planetary Science
Astronomers announce largest collection of comets found outside our solar system
This gallery contains 74 images of different star systems with cometary belts (known as “exocomets”) taken with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter (ALMA) radio telescope facilities.…
Researchers confirm an exoplanet potentially capable of sustaining life
Credit: CC0 Public Domain An international team has confirmed the discovery of a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a nearby sun-like star. The planet was originally detected two…
There could be a supermassive black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud hurling stars at the Milky Way
This beautiful image shows the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud above the ESO’s Paranal Observatory and the four Auxiliary Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Array. New research shows…
Robot grippers could be used to remove space debris
Credit: NASA/Suni Williams Blue tentacle-like arms attached to an Astrobee free-flying robot grab onto a “capture cube” in this image from Feb. 4, 2025. The experimental grippers demonstrated autonomous detection…
Astronomers find dark matter dominating in early universe galaxies
Rotation curves of distant galaxies. Data in red and blue remains relatively flat (i.e., high), similar to local massive disk galaxies at z~0 (dashed gray line) that need extended dark…
NASA CubeSat finds new radiation belts after May 2024 solar storm
The May 2024 solar storm created two extra radiation belts, sandwiched between the two permanent Van Allen Belts. One of the new belts, shown in purple, included a population of…
En route to Jupiter, Europa Clipper captures images of stars
An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Three months after its launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Europa Clipper has another 1.6 billion…
