https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences/ en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org On Aug. 5, 2026, an abandoned piece of space junk is predicted to crash into the moon near a spot called Einstein Crater. Astronomers will be watching because the collision and aftermath may be visible from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-spacex-rocket-moon-scientists.html Space Exploration Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:50:01 EDT news703856818 Solar storms may affect weather on Mars when they strike at the same time as major Martian dust storms, a new study suggests for the first time. Researchers found evidence of rising temperatures in the red planet's lower atmosphere when the two events coincided—hinting that Mars may have a more complex atmospheric environment and weather system than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mars-planetwide-storm-hints-solar.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:00:01 EDT news703783082 Space weather warnings could be received hours before Earth is hit rather than minutes with the help of a miniature UK-built instrument soon to be stationed in deep space. MAGIC (MAGnetometer from Imperial College) is part of the European Space Agency's Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defense (HENON) CubeSat mission, which is scheduled for launch in early 2027. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-deep-space-cubesat-solar-storm.html Space Exploration Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:24:32 EDT news703761842 Scientists have developed a new way to predict the strength of the sun's next activity cycle up to seven years before it reaches its peak. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sun-reveal-future-space-weather.html Astrobiology Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:00:03 EDT news703511720 The moon has been bathed in solar wind for billions of years, but the two hemispheres are struck by solar wind of different speeds and energies. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-samples-reveal-earth-solar-moon.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:00:02 EDT news703506046 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. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nasa-psyche-mission-mars-flyby.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:51:26 EDT news703605061 Researchers in the U.S. have carried out the most stringent tests to date of the idea that an ultraviolet glow in the atmospheres of giant planets could partly arise through the indirect interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter. Led by Carlos Blanco at Princeton University, the team's results place some of the tightest constraints yet on the strength of this interaction. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-giant-planets-dark-detectors.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:20:06 EDT news703496425 Nearly a decade after the discovery of LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a nearby low-mass star, a new study reveals that the object may have its own atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nearby-rocky-planet-replenishing-helium.html Astrobiology Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:00:18 EDT news703345883 In a major milestone in the search for life on other planets, astronomers have detected, for the first time, an atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star. The finding provides the strongest evidence yet that worlds with conditions similar to Earth in composition and temperature, with the potential to support life, could exist beyond our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-life-solar-atmosphere-habitable-zone.html Astrobiology Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:00:11 EDT news703314812 Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in the Milky Way galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-webb-telescope-hidden-planet-famous.html Astronomy Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:40:03 EDT news703405527 Scientists have painted the most detailed portrait yet of the planetary system orbiting Barnard's Star—the sun's closest neighbor after Alpha Centauri, just under six light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-nearby-planets-small-strange.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:20:01 EDT news703340046 A Southwest Research Institute-led study has proposed a connection between a specific collision in the main asteroid belt and an inner-solar-system-wide bombardment episode that may have had measurable biological and geological consequences on Earth. The research suggests that the catastrophic breakup of the Eulalia parent body could be linked to an impact shower that struck the terrestrial planets about 800 million years ago. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-asteroid-breakup-solar-bombardment-million.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:00:12 EDT news703338887 NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has uncovered evidence that a 245-foot-thick (75-meter-thick) stack of ancient rock on the rim of Jezero Crater was built by repeated asteroid impacts. Referred to as the "Broom Point member" by the rover's science team, this sequence of layered bedrock is likely more than 3.9 billion years old, making it among the oldest terrain ever examined by a Mars rover. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nasa-perseverance-rover-ancient-mars.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:20:04 EDT news703339076 Typically, astronomers identify comets by their distinct atmospheres, or comae, and their tails, which are created as the sun vaporizes a comet's ice. These features emit a glow when sunlight bounces off dust and water droplets. As gas escapes the body of the comet, it also acts as a tiny thruster, subtly changing the comet's path. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-asteroid-unexplained-orbital-shift-dark.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:11:43 EDT news703332667 The effects of extreme space weather may be larger than previously thought, research in the journal Nature reveals. The paper, titled "Regression to the mean can explain saturation of geomagnetic storms," is led by Dr. Nithin Sivadas of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and co-authored by Dr. Maria Walach from Lancaster University. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-solar-storms-underestimated.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:00:06 EDT news703263336 New research by lunar scientists from Brown University provides critical new insights into the thickness of the moon's regolith, the layer of loose dust and rock that drapes the entire lunar surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-eye-exploration-moon-regolith-thickness.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:00:09 EDT news703263513 Evidence of the slowing of Charon's spin period (despinning) is recorded in tectonic features on the surface of Pluto's icy moon, according to a modeling study published in Nature Communications. The findings offer insights into the early thermal evolution of Charon and other icy satellites in the outer solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-pluto-moon-charon.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:38:00 EDT news703255062 A technique for judging whether a common mineral formed through biological activity could aid the search for ancient life on Earth and Mars. Apatite is a ubiquitous phosphate mineral found in terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. It is a major component of teeth and bones, but it also occurs in igneous rocks and sedimentary phosphorites. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-driven-tool-mineral-biosignatures-worlds.html Astrobiology Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:50:01 EDT news703246314 Scientists have detected evidence of landslides on Pluto for the first time. A paper published in the journal Icarus reports that images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during a flyby revealed six large landslides in three impact craters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-massive-landslides-icy-pluto.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:30:02 EDT news703172932 The planets that appear most common in the universe could have a lot of water—but it could be hiding where telescopes can't detect it, according to a new study led by scientists with the University of Chicago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-distant-exoplanets-webb-telescope.html Astronomy Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:00:01 EDT news703166987 A giant mirror to create "sunlight on demand" was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), despite opposition from astronomers and the public, and real safety concerns. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-giant-space-mirror-sunlight-demand.html Space Exploration Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:07:02 EDT news703159573 Ever so slightly bigger than Earth, the exoplanet LHS 3844b orbits its parent star, LHS 3844, a red dwarf 48.5 light-years from our solar system. Its rotational speed mirrors its orbital speed. The result? One side of LHS 3844b is perpetually bathed in scorching sunlight, locked into a never-ending, blistering hot day, while the other is forever shrouded in darkness so cold that particles are incapable of movement, a state known as absolute zero (zero Kelvin). https://phys.org/news/2026-07-exoplanets-eternal-day-endless-night.html Astrobiology Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:00:05 EDT news702896075 An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star as part of the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). The newfound alien world, designated NGTS-39 b, is a Jupiter-sized planet with an equilibrium temperature of about 519 K. The discovery was detailed in a paper published July 2 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jupiter-exoplanet-transiting-sun-star.html Astronomy Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:50:02 EDT news702889542 Sub-Neptunes are the most common type of planet in our galaxy. Bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, these worlds remain deeply mysterious because scientists still do not know what they are made of. What astronomers really want to figure out is their interior composition. They could be rocky planets wrapped in hydrogen-rich atmospheres, or they could be volatile-rich worlds loaded with water or carbon-bearing molecules. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-reveal-clouds-hidden-interiors.html Astronomy Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:03 EDT news702888098 Stars like our sun are formed from the collapse of stellar objects called prestellar cores, cold and dense concentrations of gas and dust held together by gravity. While many questions remain about the exact mechanisms of star formation, advanced radio telescopes have given researchers new insights into the inner workings of infant stars. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-capturing-cosmic-drift-star-born.html Astronomy Fri, 10 Jul 2026 04:00:02 EDT news702801778 This close-up view shows fragments of sulfur crystals, the first ever seen on the Red Planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-image-curiosity-rover-martian-sulfur.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:32:20 EDT news702826315 The young planetary system of the 23-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris (short: Beta Pic) is regarded as an iconic circumstellar dust disk, which hosts at least three giant gas planets. Discovered in 2008 by direct imaging, Beta Pic b is the most massive of those planets, measuring approximately 11 Jupiter masses. It orbits its host star on a wide trajectory, taking about 23 years for one revolution. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-young-giant-gas-planet-beta.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:02 EDT news702700691 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 millimeter-sized, spherical mineral grains within the parent bodies of the most common meteorites? The work is published in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-primordial-mini-moons-meteorite-composition.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:20:01 EDT news702746073 Scientists from Queen's University Belfast have led an international team in the discovery of a rare new planet, which is larger than Jupiter and orbits a distant star every 180 days. Named NGTS-38 b, it is an exoplanet—a planet that orbits a star beyond our solar system. It is about 8% larger than Jupiter and almost five times more massive. Planets of this size and mass are often referred to as "super-Jupiters." https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-rare-super-jupiter-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:40:02 EDT news702737535 Building material samples from the University of Delaware spent six months mounted outside the International Space Station, where the harsh conditions of low Earth orbit tested their limits. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-lab-moon-lunar-cement-alternative.html Space Exploration Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:00:03 EDT news702724623