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Planetary Sciences news
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.
Planetary Sciences
2 hours ago
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Hera asteroid mission's side-trip to Mars
ESA's Hera asteroid mission for planetary defense will make a swingby of Mars next March, borrowing speed to help reach its target Didymos binary asteroid system.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 25, 2024
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TESS finds its first rogue planet
Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites hunting for them is TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Astronomers using TESS think they are made a rather surprising ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 25, 2024
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The Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future, and NASA is calling on private companies for backup
A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this decade ...
Space Exploration
Apr 25, 2024
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A NASA rover has reached a promising place to search for fossilized life on Mars
While we go about our daily lives on Earth, a nuclear-powered robot the size of a small car is trundling around Mars looking for fossils. Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, NASA's Perseverance rover is explicitly intended ...
Astrobiology
Apr 24, 2024
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Signs of 'spider' phenomenon on Mars
ESA's Mars Express has snapped the telltale traces of "spiders" scattered across the southern polar region of Mars.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 24, 2024
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Researchers find oldest undisputed evidence of Earth's magnetic field
A new study, led by the University of Oxford and MIT, has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth today. The findings ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 24, 2024
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Lunar landforms indicate geologically recent seismic activity on the moon
The moon's steadfast illumination of our night sky has been a source of wonder and inspiration for millennia. Since the first satellite images of its surface were taken in the 1960s, our understanding of Earth's companion ...
NASA to overhaul mission returning samples from Mars—here's why it must and will go ahead
NASA recently announced that it is seeking new ways to complete the return to Earth of rock cores drilled by the Perseverance Rover in the Jezero Crater on Mars. This has led to some anxiety among space scientists, who view ...
Space Exploration
Apr 23, 2024
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New evidence found for Planet 9
A small team of planetary scientists from the California Institute of Technology, Université Côte d'Azur and Southwest Research Institute reports possible new evidence of Planet 9. They have published their paper on the ...
Eclipse projects shed new light on solar corona
Teams led by Southwest Research Institute successfully executed two experiments—by land and air—collecting unique solar data from the total eclipse that cast a shadow from Texas to Maine on April 8, 2024. The Citizen ...
Astronomy
Apr 22, 2024
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Why is methane seeping on Mars? NASA scientists have new ideas
The most surprising revelation from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover—that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater—has scientists scratching their heads.
Astrobiology
Apr 22, 2024
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Doomed comet spotted near the sun during the April 8 total solar eclipse
A surprise appearance of a new comet made the April 8 total solar eclipse all the more memorable.
Astronomy
Apr 22, 2024
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Juno reveals a giant lava lake on Io
NASA's Juno spacecraft came within 1,500 km (930 miles) of the surface of Jupiter's moon Io in two recent flybys. That's close enough to reveal new details on the surface of this moon, the most volcanic object in the solar ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 22, 2024
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Radiating exoplanet discovered in 'perfect tidal storm'
Can tidal forces cause an exoplanet's surface to radiate heat? This is what a study accepted to the Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of international researchers used data collected from ground-based instruments ...
Planetary Sciences
Apr 22, 2024
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Look to deadly Venus to find life in the universe, new paper argues
Despite surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, lava-spewing volcanoes, and puffy clouds of sulfuric acid, uninhabitable Venus offers vital lessons about the potential for life on other planets, a new paper argues.
Astrobiology
Apr 22, 2024
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Computer model helps support theory of asteroid Kamo'oalewa as ejecta from the moon
A small international team of planetary scientists has found evidence supporting the theory that the near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa is ejecta from the moon. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group ...
Astronomers offer new model for formation of recently discovered 'free-floating' planets
The recent discovery of a potential new class of distant and mysterious "free-floating" planets has intrigued astronomers since stunning new images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope were shared late last year.
Astronomy
Apr 22, 2024
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Crucial building blocks of life on Earth can more easily form in outer space, says new research
The origin of life on Earth is still enigmatic, but we are slowly unraveling the steps involved and the necessary ingredients. Scientists believe life arose in a primordial soup of organic chemicals and biomolecules on the ...
Astrobiology
Apr 21, 2024
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Mars rover continues progress along upper Gediz Vallis ridge
Curiosity continues to make progress along the margin of upper Gediz Vallis ridge, investigating the broken bedrock in our workspace and acquiring images of the ridge deposit as the rover drives south.
Planetary Sciences
Apr 19, 2024
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More news
Study suggests Io's volcanoes have been active for 4.5 billion years
Two NASA sounding rockets launch from Alaska during solar flare
NASA's Juno gives aerial views of mountain and lava lake on Io
Are Titan's dunes made of comet dust?
'Tube map' around planets and moons made possible by knot theory
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter team says goodbye—for now
NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft mission to Saturn's moon Titan confirmed
NASA Goddard to build quake detector for Artemis III moon landing
The history of the young cold traps of the asteroid Ceres
NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth
Supporting the future of Mars exploration with supercomputers
Other news
Getting dynamic information from static snapshots
Optical barcodes expand range of high-resolution sensor
Large Hadron Collider experiment zeroes in on magnetic monopoles
Gigantic Jurassic raptor footprints unearthed in China
Unveiling a new quantum frontier: Frequency-domain entanglement
A new way to study and help prevent landslides
Study details a common bacterial defense against viral infection
NASA unveils probe bound for Jupiter's possibly life-sustaining moon
A new type of seismic sensor to detect moonquakes
Juice aces Callisto flyby test
How much of Venus's atmosphere is coming from volcanoes?
Scientists capture X-rays from upward positive lightning
Energy trades could help resolve Nile conflict
Experiment reveals strategic thinking in mice
