Keeping It Cool in Pluto’s Haze
The New Horizons spacecraft discovered that the temperature of Pluto’s atmosphere is much lower than the previous estimates. The cooling mechanism is still a mystery, although modeling by Xi Zhang […]
Tag Archives: atmosphere
Planetary and Space Sciences (PSS) Special Issue Invitation: Dust, Atmosphere and Plasma Environment of the Moon and Small Bodies
The DAP-2017 workshop was held in Boulder on January 11th-13th. It was focused on open science questions, the status and future of our supporting modeling and laboratory experimental capabilities, and […]
DUST, ATMOSPHERES, AND PLASMAS (DAP) 2017
The Dust, Atmosphere and Plasma environment of the Moon and Small Bodies (DAP-2017) workshop will be a forum: (i) to discuss our current understanding of the surface environment of the […]
NASA-funded Study Explains Saturn’s Epic Tantrums
The long-standing mystery of why Saturn seethes with enormous storms every 30 years may have been solved by scientists working with data from NASA’s Cassini mission. The tempests, which can […]
Venus Express Goes Gently Into the Night
ESA’s Venus Express has ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit following […]
NASA Rover Finds Active and Ancient Organic Chemistry on Mars
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by […]
NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan’s Stratosphere
NASA scientists have identified an unexpected high-altitude methane ice cloud on Saturn’s moon Titan that is similar to exotic clouds found far above Earth’s poles. This lofty cloud, imaged by […]
Swirling Cloud at Titan’s Pole is Cold and Toxic
Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini mission have discovered that a giant, toxic cloud is hovering over the south pole of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, after the atmosphere there cooled […]
Titan’s Building Blocks Might Pre-date Saturn
A combined NASA and European Space Agency (ESA)-funded study has found firm evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan originated in conditions similar to the cold birthplace […]
NASA Experiments Recreate Aromatic Flavors of Titan
NASA scientists have created a new recipe that captures key flavors of the brownish-orange atmosphere around Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The recipe is used for lab experiments designed to simulate […]
NASA Spacecraft Get a 360-Degree View of Saturn’s Auroras
NASA trained several pairs of eyes on Saturn as the planet put on a dancing light show at its poles. While NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, orbiting around Earth, was able […]
EGU 2014 SESSION: PS2.4 MARS SCIENCE AND EXPLORATION
27 April – 02 May 2014, EGU, Vienna The Mars Science and Exploration Session will address the latest results on the interior, surface, atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars from recent and ongoing […]
NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft Obtains Best Views of Saturn Hexagon
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has obtained the highest-resolution movie yet of a unique six-sided jet stream, known as the hexagon, around Saturn’s north pole. This is the first hexagon movie of […]
Here Comes the Sun: Ionizing Titan’s Atmosphere
A detailed analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has directly linked the density of the ionosphere – a region in the upper atmosphere that is dominated by electrically charged […]
NASA Rover Confirms Mars Origin of Some Meteorites
Examination of the Martian atmosphere by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover confirms that some meteorites that have dropped to Earth really are from the Red Planet. A key new measurement of […]
NASA Mission To Study Mysterious Lunar Twilight Rays
Back in the 60s and 70s, Apollo astronauts circling the Moon saw something that still puzzles researchers today. About 10 seconds before lunar sunrise or lunar sunset, pale luminous streamers […]
Cassini Sees Saturn Storm’s Explosive Power
A monster storm that erupted on Saturn in late 2010 – as large as any storm ever observed on the ringed planet — has already impressed researchers with its intensity […]
Around the World in Four Days: NASA Tracks Chelyabinsk Meteor Plume
Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi missed witnessing an event of the century last winter when a meteor exploded over his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia. From Greenbelt, Md., however, NASA’s Gorkavyi and […]
Invitation to the MAVEN Launch
Members of the Division for Planetary Sciences are cordially invited to the launch of the MAVEN mission to Mars from Kennedy Space Center. The launch period begins Nov. 18, 2013, […]