News From Space
Time capsules from the birth of our solar system more than 4 billion years ago, the swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. The Trojans orbit the Sun in two loose groups, with one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its […]
NASA’s Perseverance rover recently completed the collection of the first sample of martian rock, a core from Jezero Crater slightly thicker than a pencil. Mission controllers at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California received data that confirmed the historic milestone. The core is now enclosed in an airtight titanium sample tube, making it […]
Anomalies in the distribution of hydrogen at Occator Crater on the dwarf planet Ceres reveal an icy crust, says a new study led by Tom Prettyman, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute (PSI). The evidence comes from data acquired by the Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector (GRaND) onboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. A detailed […]
New data analysis techniques allow evidence of recent volcanism to be found in old Magellan spacecraft data. It is unclear if this activity is occurring today or occurred within tens of millions of years, but geologically speaking, either case is recent. This adds to the growing body of evidence that volcanoes on Venus didn’t go […]
Stars scattered throughout the cosmos look different, but they may be more alike than once thought, according to Rice University researchers. New modeling work by Rice scientists shows that “cool” stars like the Sun share the dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. This stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a […]
New research published in Nature has revealed the solution to Jupiter’s energy crisis, which has puzzled astronomers for decades. Space scientists at the University of Leicester worked with colleagues from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Boston University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) to reveal […]
What lies beneath the frozen surface of Mars’ south polar region has been a recent hot topic among researchers, and a new paper by Planetary Science Institute (PSI) Research Scientist Isaac Smith refines the answer, pouring cold water on the subglacial lake theory. The bright radar reflectors detected at the martian south pole are not […]
In a recent study, NASA researchers used precision-tracking data from the agency’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to better understand movements of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu through the year 2300, significantly reducing uncertainties related to its future orbit, and improving scientists’ ability to determine the total impact probability and predict […]
Astronomers spotted something incredible in Earth’s backyard: a rogue comet from another star system in 2019. Named Borisov, the icy snowball traveled 180,000 kilometers per hour (110,000 miles per hour) and marked the first and only interstellar comet ever detected by humans. But what if these interstellar visitors — comets, meteors, asteroids, and other debris […]
As scientists prepare for crewed research missions to nearby planets and moons, they’ve identified a need for something beyond rovers and rockets: accurate weather forecasts. Without them, any trip to the surface may be one dust storm away from disaster. A new Yale study helps lay the foundation for more accurate, otherworldly forecasts by taking […]
Astronomers have long suspected that superflares, extreme radiation bursts from stars, can cause lasting damage to the atmospheres and habitability of exoplanets. A new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reports that they pose only a limited danger to planetary systems. “We’ve known these are big flares, much larger than we […]