The ESA-Roscosmos Trace Gas Orbiter has set new upper limits on how much methane, ethane, ethylene and phosphine is in the martian atmosphere—four so-called 'biomarker' gases that are potential signs of life.
Space Exploration
Jul 20, 2021
0
10
Comets that circle the Sun in very elongated orbits spread their debris so thin along their orbit or eject it out of the solar system altogether so that their meteor showers are hard to detect. From a new meteor shower survey ...
Space Exploration
May 20, 2021
0
775
Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place within the past 50,000 years, a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist David Horvath says.
Planetary Sciences
May 6, 2021
6
435
By Earth standards, the surface of Mars is the picture of desolation. It's not only irradiated and cold enough to make Antarctica look balmy, but it's also one-thousands times drier than the driest places on Earth. However, ...
Space Exploration
May 3, 2021
0
1156
On April 21, 1908, near Earth's North Pole, the Arctic explorer Frederick Albert Cook scrawled in his diary a memorable phrase: "We were the only pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice." These words may soon take on new ...
Space Exploration
Apr 19, 2021
9
441
The world's first ground-based observations of the bare nucleus of a comet nearing the end of its active life revealed that the nucleus has a diameter of 800 meters and is covered with large grains of phyllosilicate; on Earth ...
Space Exploration
Apr 6, 2021
3
355
Mars has lost most of its once plentiful water, with small amounts remaining in the planet's atmosphere. ESA's Mars Express now reveals more about where this water has gone, showing that its escape to space is accelerated ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 22, 2021
2
287
If experiments done in small bottles in a University of Oregon lab are accurate, the friction of colliding Martian dust particles are unlikely to generate big electrical storms or threaten the newly arrived exploration vehicles ...
Space Exploration
Feb 19, 2021
1
37
Using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeled chemical processes in the subsurface ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The studies indicate the possibility that a varied ...
Space Exploration
Dec 16, 2020
2
516
A large, previously unrecognized reservoir of water ice on Mars is well preserved and formed within the past few million years, says a paper led by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Daniel C. Berman.
Space Exploration
Dec 15, 2020
0
139
