https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences/ en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org New evidence from gas seeping above volcanic rifts suggests Mars is not geologically dead deep inside, but merely sleeping. Fresh fissures along the Alba Mons region hint at active spots under the surface, where gases from inside the planet may be making their way up to the surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-european-orbiter-fresh-hints-volcanic.html Astrobiology Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:40:07 EST news713035561 Even the world's most powerful telescopes have their blind spots. Although NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can peer billions of years into the past, it still struggles to photograph planets orbiting nearby stars. Stars shine with such extraordinary brightness that their glare overwhelms nearby planets' faint glow. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-giant-planet-emerges-year-jwst.html Space Exploration Wed, 04 Nov 2026 11:00:01 EST news712917421 Modern space exploration hasn't quite reached "Star Trek" levels of boldly going where no one has gone before. But if, like the denizens of the USS Enterprise, astronauts one day want to land on an uncharted planet, they'd first want to know what's on—and under—the surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-vibrations-reveal-beneath-planets-surfaces.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Nov 2026 19:10:01 EST news712951561 With their mysterious glow and swirling veils of color, auroras enchant even experienced researchers. When a particularly intense solar storm reached Earth on the night of May 10, 2024, and relevant websites predicted auroras even for southern Lower Saxony, several researchers from the Technical University of Braunschweig, the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films IST, the University of Göttingen, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) took to the outdoors. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-red-green-auroras-electron-driven.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:40:15 EST news712923901 If a dangerous asteroid were headed toward Earth, one defense could be a nuclear detonation to blast one side with X-rays and nudge it off course. But new simulations suggest that for a lumpy, irregular asteroid, exactly where those X-rays hit could make a huge difference. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-asteroid-nuclear-blast-aimed-deflect.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:20:09 EST news712923481 It's a dizzyingly busy time for scientists searching for life on distant planets. To date, astronomers have cataloged more than 6,000 planets beyond our solar system and are searching the atmospheres of the most promising worlds for chemicals that might be byproducts of life. Astrobiologists are particularly interested in atmospheres like Earth's that trap enough heat to support liquid water on the planet's surface, which scientists consider the key factor in determining whether a planet can support life as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-scientists-earth-simulation-life-planets.html Astrobiology Mon, 02 Nov 2026 13:50:01 EST news712846766 Asteroid Ryugu and some carbonaceous meteorites, which are thought to have similar origins in the early solar system, are known as chemically "primitive" materials because they preserve the chemical composition of the early solar system remarkably well. Yet these rocks also reacted extensively with water after they formed, transforming many of their original minerals into new ones. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-overlooked-material-ryugu-meteorites-ancient.html Astrobiology Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:40:13 EST news712839301 Tucked away among its sensors, cameras and navigation tools, NASA's Mars rover Perseverance is wearing small swatches of spacesuit material. A rover doesn't need a spacesuit, but the swatches—each less than a square inch (6.5 square centimeters) in size—serve an important purpose: They're helping scientists assess the potential damage caused by ubiquitous Martian dust. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mars-abrasive-lunar-spacesuit-samples.html Space Exploration Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:00:01 EST news712512186 The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical clue to conditions in the planetary system of its origin, locked away long before it reached our sun. Its methane signature is unusually rich in heavy hydrogen, suggesting that the comet's frozen ingredients took shape in an intensely cold environment around another star—or in the cloud that preceded it. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-heavy-hydrogen-3iatlas-methane-frigid.html Astronomy Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:20:02 EST news712416739 Scientists at the University of New Mexico have played a key role in identifying a rare, 4.1-billion-year-old Martian meteorite that provides new evidence that the red planet may have once had a wetter, Earth-like environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-rare-billion-year-martian-meteorite.html Astrobiology Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:30:05 EDT news712513021 When asteroids travel too close to white dwarfs, the dense remnants of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel, powerful gravitational forces can tear them apart. However, new research from Planetary Science Institute (PSI) suggests that these asteroids don't immediately break into dust. Instead, most of the mass initially remains in larger fragments, revealing a previously overlooked step in how debris forms around dying stars. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-asteroids-venturing-white-dwarfs-dont.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 29 Oct 2026 18:50:01 EDT news712509781 A new study lets some of the air out of a long-held theory that growing, rocky planets will lose their atmosphere if they smash into a large object in space. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-planetary-collisions-young-worlds-atmospheres.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 29 Oct 2026 15:30:01 EDT news712503182 Sixty-three light-years from Earth, in the small, faint constellation known as Pictor (which is Latin for "painter"), there lies a strange structure that has puzzled astronomers for the last two years. Nicknamed the "Cat's Tail," this dark feature stretches across an abyss of space about a thousand times the average distance between Earth and the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-enormous-cat-tail-cosmic-collision.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:40:01 EDT news712487522 A team of researchers has produced the first global, three-dimensional estimates of the sun's magnetic field, including the area beyond the sun's visible edge. This marks a step toward more accurate models of solar activity—and ultimately, better predictions of solar magnetic eruptions, which are the root cause of extreme space weather that can impact critical infrastructure technologies on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sun-outer-magnetic-field-3d.html Astronomy Wed, 28 Oct 2026 16:10:02 EDT news712421641 Using advanced new simulations, a team of astronomers in the U.S. has developed a promising new theory for how giant, gaseous exoplanets migrate into stiflingly close orbits around their host stars. Led by J. J. Zanazzi at The Pennsylvania State University, the team showed how both massive "hot Jupiters" and smaller, Neptune-sized planets could migrate from distant, elliptical orbits as they release energy via dramatic shock waves in their outer atmospheres. Their results have been published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-supersonic-strange-orbits-hot-jupiters.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:20:06 EDT news712412094 The Earth is surrounded by an invisible barrier that was thought to prevent highly energetic electrons from reaching closer to our planet. But in 2024, Japan's Arase space probe detected these electrons well inside the barrier. Now, research led by Nagoya University has found evidence that the electrons were accelerated locally rather than infiltrating from outer radiation belts. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-solar-storm-triggered-ultrarelativistic-electrons.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:40:07 EDT news712405322 The theory that comets delivered the molecular building blocks for life on Earth is a long-standing one, since comets are known to carry many of these molecules. However, a new study challenges this idea. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-comets-didnt-seed-life-earth.html Astrobiology Wed, 28 Oct 2026 06:00:10 EDT news712240261 Scientists may add a new dwarf planet to the official roster of our solar system. The distant, icy body, provisionally dubbed 2026 ED138, orbits our system beyond Pluto. It was spotted earlier this month by a scientist combing through data from the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-rubin-observatory-reveals-dwarf-planet.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 27 Oct 2026 18:30:05 EDT news712338601 Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have found a rare disk of debris around a dead star that provides a glimpse of what may happen to our solar system. Unlike in similar systems previously found, the debris—the leftovers of planets that once orbited the star—is organized in a double disk, the two parts separated by a clear gap. The disk appears to be shaped by two planetary bodies, one possibly as big as Pluto, that have survived the violent death of the star. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-debris-disk-orbiting-dead-star.html Astronomy Tue, 27 Oct 2026 18:00:12 EDT news712322463 Over 1,645 Martian days, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover measured the fine and ultrafine Martian dust particles found clinging to samples of spacesuit materials that are carried aboard the rover, including particles small enough to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and could inform spacesuit and habitat design, dust-removal procedures and crew health standards for future NASA missions to Mars. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-perseverance-clues-crews-ultrafine-mars.html Space Exploration Tue, 27 Oct 2026 12:00:01 EDT news712314844 Earth may have produced much of its water during the planet's formation, as rocky pebbles reacted with the hydrogen-rich atmosphere surrounding the young planet, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience. The findings offer a potential explanation for how Earth acquired one of the essential ingredients for life and suggest that similar water-producing processes could be common on rocky planets beyond our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-earth-planet-grew.html Astrobiology Tue, 27 Oct 2026 11:40:01 EDT news712312933 A Southwest Research Institute–led study used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to examine ice grains streaming from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, just the third object from beyond our solar system ever identified. The observations point to tiny aggregates of water ice and dust, about a micron or smaller. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-webb-links-interstellar-comet-3iatlas.html Astronomy Tue, 27 Oct 2026 10:00:13 EDT news712310882 A rocky lava planet once thought to be too extreme to have an atmosphere appears to be wrapped in one with a reflective layer of vaporized silicate mineral clouds, the same family of compounds that make up quartz and sand. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-clouds-lava-planet-astronomers.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:20:01 EDT news712234995 From its visible surface, the sun radiates heat at a relatively cool temperature of 5,800 Kelvin. Yet within the thin outer layer of the sun's atmosphere known as the corona, electrons can reach temperatures of millions of degrees, for reasons astronomers have yet to fully explain. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-laser-blasted-plasma-instabilities-sun.html Astronomy Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:00:10 EDT news712234865 The Orion Nebula is a large star-forming region visible to the naked eye. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets form. Radiation from the massive central star, 1 Ori C1 (Theta-1 Orionis C1), gradually strips material from these disks, giving them shapes that resemble tadpoles. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-stellar-collision-orion-nebula-planet.html Astronomy Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:00:01 EDT news711977761 Do cosmic radiation doses near the moon differ significantly from those received by astronauts in low Earth orbit? Experimental lithium fluoride detectors, installed aboard the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I mission, have now made it possible to obtain preliminary estimates. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-artemis-crystals-experimental-detectors-doses.html Space Exploration Fri, 23 Oct 2026 11:40:01 EDT news711967966 In the deepest region of the Earth's mantle, just above the core, much of the material consists of crystals of magnesium oxide. In larger rocky exoplanets called super-Earths, the higher pressures in the lower mantle may drive magnesium oxide to transform into a new high-pressure crystal structure or a metallic, electrically conductive liquid that generates a magnetic field. And in gas giants, magnesium oxide could exist in the cores themselves. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mineral-planets-reveals-lesson.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 03:42:44 EDT news711945720 An international team of scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, led by a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of Newcastle, Australia, has discovered that solar jets called spicules, which are 6–8 Mm long, take the form of warped, denser plasma sheets like pleated drapery. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-curtain-plasma-solar-jets-apparent.html Astronomy Thu, 22 Oct 2026 10:20:06 EDT news711877531 A new study suggests that some of the heaviest rocky planets ever reported may not be as heavy as they look. These so-called 'mega-Earths,' rocky planets weighing more than about 10 Earths, could be an illusion created by activity on their host stars. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Oct. 8. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mega-earths-real-stellar-oversized.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:50:01 EDT news711879490 Earthquakes and the seismic waves they generate provide some of the best clues to Earth's interior. To extend that success to other worlds, scientists placed seismometers on the Apollo missions to the moon and on the Viking Mars landers, which reached Mars in 1976. Though the Apollo detectors proved a resounding success, Viking's results on Mars were less clear: Viking 1's seismometer failed to deploy properly, and Viking 2 recorded only two ambiguous events. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reexamined-viking-reveals-marsquake-region.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:40:06 EDT news711799802