Planetary sciences is an interdisciplinary field that investigates the formation, evolution, and current state of planets, moons, and smaller bodies within and beyond our Solar System using the methods of physics, chemistry, geology, and atmospheric science. It encompasses studies of planetary interiors, surfaces, atmospheres, magnetospheres, and ring systems, as well as orbital dynamics and interactions with stellar radiation and plasma environments. Planetary sciences integrates remote sensing, in situ spacecraft measurements, laboratory experiments, and numerical modeling to constrain processes such as accretion, differentiation, tectonism, volcanism, impact cratering, climate evolution, and potential habitability on diverse planetary bodies.
Researchers from the University of Leicester and the University of Aberdeen have carried out a series of field demonstrations in Portsoy to test cutting-edge handheld analytical instruments. Designed for use by astronauts ...
Space Exploration
Aug 6, 2026
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Named for the mythical valley where the god Dionysus was raised in secret by nymphs, the asteroid 44 Nysa inhabits the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Through observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers ...
Finding water on the moon may only be a matter of detecting the right vibrations.
Space Exploration
Jul 31, 2026
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25
In November 2025, NASA's Mars-bound ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral with special cargo on board: two camera systems designed and built by faculty and ...
Astronomy
Jul 29, 2026
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Ancient samples from the moon's far side are helping scientists uncover how asteroid impacts shaped the early solar system. The findings challenge decades of thinking about when those impacts occurred and offer new insights ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 24, 2026
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The worlds of the solar system are exciting and, so far, mostly pristine places for planetary scientists to study. As space missions continue to travel to Mars, Europa, asteroids and other worlds, questions arise about keeping ...
Astronomy
Jul 24, 2026
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Dreams of finding a sort of Earth 2.0 motivate much of the thinking around the search for exoplanets. But there is more to exoplanet science than searching for potentially habitable worlds. Scientists need a deeper understanding ...
Astrobiology
Jul 21, 2026
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St. Louis is a plant science powerhouse, but outside the neatly tended rows of crops and gleaming greenhouses sits another treasure trove of biological data: The wild plants tucked into yards, sidewalk cracks, ditches and ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 20, 2026
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The spacecraft aced its encounter with Mars. Now, mission scientists are studying a trove of data from the flyby in preparation for its arrival at asteroid Psyche in 2029.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 18, 2026
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After decades of analyzing reams of lunar rocks back here on Earth, the canonical view of the moon was that it was anhydrous; that it had extraordinarily little water. That all began to change in 2009 with new data from NASA's ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 13, 2026
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