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Planetary Science

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Bizarre Venus surface formations puzzle planetary scientists

Bizarre Venus surface formations (or coronae) are likely key to understanding our twin planet's heretofore inscrutable interior. Using NASA Magellan spacecraft data from decades pa...

Primordial mini-moons may explain meteorite composition

A new Southwest Research Institute-led study proposes a solution to a longstanding puzzle in planetary science: What caused the concentration, assembly, and preservation of millime...

'Mini-Neptune' exoplanets may have smoggy atmospheres similar to diesel exhaust

The astronauts circling Earth on the Artemis mission sent back beautiful clear photos of the continents, clouds, and oceans. But we might be the exception. Many planets in the univ...

Rare meteorite provides evidence of giant early planet

Four-and-a-half billion years ago, a massive world—possibly as big as the moon or even Mars—orbited our sun before crashing into another celestial body and shattering into rubble....

Scientists get their best-ever look at distant planet’s surface

"The more we learn about these other planets, the better we understand the ingredients that make for stable, habitable planets."

Nautilus array to track missing exoplanet atmospheres

Exoplanet atmospheres have become prime targets for astrobiologists in the search for life beyond Earth. This is because exoplanet surfaces can't be directly imaged yet, so astrono...

New study has shone a new light on searching for habitable worlds

When astronomers discovered the first planet outside our solar system, it was orbiting a pulsar, one of the most extreme, radiation-blasted environments imaginable. Not exactly the...

NASA's proposed Early eVolution Explorer mission aims to solve the radius valley mystery

A debate has been raging among planetary scientists for more than a decade—why are there so few exoplanets with a radius of about 1.8 times that of Earth? Exoplanets are currently...

Lava planet has hydrogen-rich, active atmosphere

It's 2158, and you're chugging away on your Ph.D. in planetary volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get paid a sub-living wage, so yo...

A Rare Meteorite Just Revealed a Lost, Mars-Sized Planet from the Dawn of the Solar System

Meteorites are (usually) gifts from the heavens. They provide unique insights to parts of the solar system that we couldn’t access otherwise - either because it's too expensive, or...

NASA’s Proposed EVE Mission Aims to Solve the Radius Valley Mystery

A debate has been raging amongst planetary scientists for over a decade - why are there so few exoplanets with a radius of about 1.8 times that of the Earth? Exoplanets are current...

Plans for Moon-Based Gravitational-Wave Detectors Get a Lift from Geology

Author(s): Michael SchirberA proposed gravitational-wave observatory on the Moon might gather more information than previously thought, thanks to geology.[Physics 19, s89] Publishe...

Just outside Jupiter, one region may have forged six meteorite parent bodies

When the solar system formed, a disk of gas and dust orbited the young sun. Over the course of millions of years, the dust gradually clumped together to form kilometer-sized chunks...

The consensus problem

Why space science has goals and human exploration has funding but neither has both

Analyzing avalanches on asteroid Vesta offers new method for understanding regolith processes

A study conducted at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris uses images from NASA's Dawn mission and a Bayesian inversion of the Hapke photometric model to analyze avalanches a...

Famous 'Pink Planet' harbors a salty surprise

Northwestern University-led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe's famous "Pink Planet." For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astr...

Making sense of Mars' tiny moon Phobos

Mars' innermost moon, Phobos, has long puzzled planetary scientists, who have continually debated whether it's a captured asteroid or formed from debris after a giant impactor stru...

Nautilus Array to Track Missing Exoplanet Atmospheres

Exoplanet atmospheres have become prima targets for astrobiologists in the search for life beyond Earth. This is because exoplanet surfaces can’t be directly imaged yet, so astrono...

Mineral clues in Gale Crater track ancient Mars climate change

While NASA imagery has shown evidence of ancient rivers and lakes on Mars that transitioned to dry dunes, uncertainty remains over the timing of the environmental changes that may...

Quite the journey

A planet’s path around the Sun, a quasi-moon tagging along, and your name a million miles away.

Big impacts

New asteroid discoveries, big changes at NASA, and breathtaking views of Saturn.

That "Pink Planet" Astronomers Found Turns Out to be a Salty Customer!

Found in 2013, Pink Planet was too faint to study with ground-based telescopes. In new study, scientists used JWST and advanced processing methods to obtain its spectrum for the fi...