https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. How can scientists estimate the pH level of Enceladus' subsurface ocean without landing on its surface? This is what a study recently posted to the arXiv preprint server hopes to address as a team of scientists from Japan investigated new methods for sampling the plumes of Enceladus and have provided more accurate measurements of its pH levels. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the subsurface ocean conditions on Enceladus and whether it's suitable for life as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-enceladus-plumes-clue-ocean-habitability.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:30:05 EST news688202241 Caltech researchers have developed a new simulation of the hydrological cycle on Jupiter, modeling how water vapor condenses into clouds and falls as rain throughout the giant planet's swirled, turbulent atmosphere. The research shows that Jupiter's water is not uniformly distributed, giving missions like NASA's Juno orbiter important guidance about where to look for water on the planet. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-simulation-reveals-uneven-jupiter-turbulent.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:56:03 EDT news678383761 In a science lab on the fourth floor of UTSA's Multidisciplinary Studies Building, UTSA students engage in meticulous choreography around a glowing furnace, melting rocks to produce lava. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-volcanoes-asteroids-lab-advances-planetary.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 24 Sep 2025 09:18:03 EDT news677924281 Everyone who has ever lived on Earth has been well-aware of the moon, but it turns out Earth also has some frequent temporary companions. These "quasi-moons" are small asteroids that enter into a kind of resonance with Earth's orbit, although they aren't technically orbiting Earth. In August, this small group of asteroids, called Arjunas, offered another companion to add to the list. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-scientists-quasi-moon-orbiting-earth.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 10 Sep 2025 10:40:18 EDT news676718992 What can the galactic habitable zone (GHZ), galactic regions where complex life is hypothesized to be able to evolve, teach scientists about finding the correct stars that could have habitable planets? https://phys.org/news/2025-09-habitable-planet-potential-outer-galaxy.html Astrobiology Mon, 01 Sep 2025 09:37:03 EDT news675938221 Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars' faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-astronomers-star-tess-kepler.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:21:05 EDT news675350462 Neil Armstrong almost made a mistake. He had found an interesting rock sticking out of a formation. Curious to see what the rock was made of, he needed to examine its interior more closely. So he reached for his hammer and took a swing. The rock was far more brittle than he anticipated, and instead of cleaving in two it shattered. One of those shards flew away with so much force that it left behind a bloody gash in this forearm. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-stunning-astrogeology-apollo-missions.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 21 Aug 2025 16:07:04 EDT news675011222 A new study by scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several institutes across India and Saudi Arabia has reported 26 novel bacterial species growing inside cleanrooms associated with NASA space missions. These unknown and newly described species carry genetic traits associated with resilience to extreme environments such as those found in space, highlighting the importance of rigorous contamination control to prevent unintentional microbial transfer during space missions. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-tough-microbes-nasa-cleanrooms-clues.html Space Exploration Mon, 12 May 2025 16:24:47 EDT news666285884 Following a successful launch in the early hours of Wednesday morning (12 March 2025) U.K. time, the PUNCH spacecraft are poised to begin their two-year mission to study the sun's outer atmosphere and its transformation into the solar wind. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-nasa-satellites-successfully-solar.html Space Exploration Thu, 13 Mar 2025 11:29:36 EDT news661084172 A team of international scientists has unveiled groundbreaking research on the origins of lunar water, offering insights that could reshape our understanding of the Earth-moon system and the broader solar system. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the pioneering study explores the isotopic signatures of lunar water, revealing a mix of indigenous and cometary sources. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-apollo-lunar-mission-samples-reveal.html Space Exploration Thu, 19 Dec 2024 13:31:01 EST news653837458 NASA's Europa Clipper, which launched Oct. 14 on a journey to Jupiter's moon Europa, is already 13 million miles (20 million kilometers) from Earth. Two science instruments have deployed hardware that will remain at attention, extending out from the spacecraft, for the next decade—through the cruise to Jupiter and the entire prime mission. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-europa-clipper-millions-miles-instruments.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 25 Nov 2024 15:46:03 EST news651771961 Although the troposphere is often thought of as the closest layer of the atmosphere to the Earth's surface, the planetary boundary layer (PBL)—the lowest layer of the troposphere—is actually the part that most significantly influences weather near the surface. In the 2018 planetary science decadal survey, the PBL was raised as an important scientific issue that has the potential to enhance storm forecasting and improve climate projections. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-deep-image-earth-planetary-boundary.html Earth Sciences Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:43:02 EDT news632677376 Just as sat-nav did away with the need to argue over the best route home, scientists from the University of Surrey have developed a new method to find the optimal routes for future space missions without the need to waste fuel. The paper is published in the journal Astrodynamics. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-tube-planets-moons-theory.html Space Exploration Wed, 17 Apr 2024 13:35:57 EDT news632579754 Europa is one of the largest of more than 90 moons in orbit around the planet Jupiter. It is also one of the best places to look for alien life. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-life-jupiter-moon-europa-scientists.html Astrobiology Sat, 06 Apr 2024 06:40:02 EDT news631536020 Universe Today has had some fantastic discussions with researchers on the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, and planetary geophysics, and how these diverse scientific fields can help researchers and the public better understand the search for life beyond Earth. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-cosmochemistry-life-earth.html Astrobiology Thu, 28 Mar 2024 14:37:04 EDT news630855421 In the next decade, space agencies will expand the search for extraterrestrial life beyond Mars, where all of our astrobiology efforts are currently focused. This includes the ESA's JUpiter ICy moon's Explorer (JUICE) and NASA's Europa Clipper, which will fly past Europa and Ganymede repeatedly to study their surfaces and interiors. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-flying-plumes-enceladus.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:23:04 EDT news629641381 Jupiter's icy moon Europa has long been thought of as one of the most habitable worlds in the Solar System. Now the Juno mission to Jupiter has directly sampled its atmosphere in detail for the first time. The results, published in Nature Astronomy, show that Europa's icy surface produces less oxygen than we thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-jupiter-moon-europa-oxygen-thought.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 09 Mar 2024 13:20:01 EST news628866702 Decades before any probe dips a toe—and thermometer—into the waters of distant ocean worlds, Cornell astrobiologists have devised a novel way to determine ocean temperatures based on the thickness of their ice shells, effectively conducting oceanography from space. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ice-shell-thickness-reveals-temperature.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:09:26 EST news628441762 New observations from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hint that the Kuiper Belt—the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks—might stretch much farther out than we thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-nasa-horizons-dusty-hints-kuiper.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Feb 2024 12:10:05 EST news627653401 The year 2023 proved to be an important one for space missions, with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India's Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar south pole, and 2024 is shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-moon-south-pole-ice-covered-ocean.html Space Exploration Wed, 27 Dec 2023 11:10:01 EST news622894084 When spacecraft return to Earth, they don't need to shed all their velocity by firing retro-rockets. Instead, they use the atmosphere as a brake to slow down for a soft landing. Every planet in the solar system except Mercury has enough of an atmosphere to allow aerobraking maneuvers, and could allow high-speed exploration missions. A new paper looks at the different worlds and how a spacecraft must fly to take advantage of this "free lunch" to slow down at the destination. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-aerocapture-free-lunch-space-exploration.html Space Exploration Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:22:05 EST news620400122 The OSIRIS-REx mission is NASA's first mission to collect samples from an asteroid—in this case 101955 Bennu—and return to Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-nasa-successful-recovery-asteroid-samples.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:26:04 EST news619273561 Gravity data collected by NASA's Juno mission indicates Jupiter's atmospheric winds penetrate the planet in a cylindrical manner, parallel to its spin axis. A paper on the findings was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-juno-mission-jupiter-penetrate-cylindrical.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 09 Nov 2023 14:14:03 EST news618761641 It's unlikely to be a bad omen, but NASA's mission Psyche is currently due to launch on Friday 13 October. Lifting off at 10:19 EDT on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, it faces a perilous journey and isn't scheduled for arrival at its namesake asteroid, 16 Pscyhe, until 2029. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-psyche-mission-unveil-interior.html Space Exploration Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:39:06 EDT news616415943 Aerobraking is commonly used to slow down spacecraft when they arrive at various planetary systems. It requires a spacecraft to dip into the atmosphere of a celestial body in the planetary system, such as a moon or the planet itself, and use the resistance from that atmosphere to shed some of its velocity. That slow-down would then allow it to enter an orbit in the planetary system without carrying the extra fuel required to do the maneuvers through powered flight, thereby saving weight on the mission and reducing its cost. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-explore-neptune-triton-atmosphere.html Space Exploration Tue, 10 Oct 2023 13:16:21 EDT news616162579 A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Planetary Scientist and Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger lobe of the pristine Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a common origin. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-large-mound-kuiper-belt-arrokoth.html Astronomy Tue, 03 Oct 2023 11:09:03 EDT news615550141 At one time, astronomers believed that the planets formed in their current orbits, which remained stable over time. But more recent observations, theory, and calculations have shown that planetary systems are subject to shake-ups and change. Periodically, planets are kicked out of their star systems to become "rogue planets," bodies that are no longer gravitationally bound to any star and are adrift in the interstellar medium (ISM). Some of these planets may be gas giants with tightly bound icy moons orbiting them, which they could bring with them into the ISM. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-rogue-planets-explore.html Astrobiology Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:47:05 EDT news610026421 Getting to space is hard. It's even more hard to do new and interesting things in space. And when projects get hard, that usually means they cost more money. That is certainly the case for one of the most anticipated missions on NASA's current docket—the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. And it's not looking like it's going to get any easier anytime soon. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-mars-sample-mission-expensive.html Space Exploration Thu, 29 Jun 2023 12:57:03 EDT news607262221 A small team of astronomers at Université Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, working with a colleague from MCCE, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Université, has found more evidence that the moon has an inner core similar to Earth's. In their study, reported in the journal Nature, the group analyzed data from a wide variety of sources and used it to create models depicting the inner parts of the moon https://phys.org/news/2023-05-evidence-moon-core-solid-earth.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 05 May 2023 10:10:01 EDT news602497209 The New Horizons mission currently flying through the Kuiper Belt could be facing an unexpected change of plans. NASA's Science Mission Directorate is soliciting input on turning the spacecraft into a heliospheric science probe. The agency wants to do it much sooner than mission planners intended. If that happens, it will stop further planned planetary exploration of objects in that distant regime of the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-nasa-threaten-future-horizons.html Space Exploration Mon, 17 Apr 2023 14:40:05 EDT news600961201