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Planetary Sciences news
Clouds on a lava planet challenge what astronomers expected
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.
Planetary Sciences
6 hours ago
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Laser-blasted plasma shows how instabilities could heat the sun's corona
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 ...
How flare ribbons reveal hidden solar explosions on the sun
Many topics in astronomy and astrophysics are esoteric. There's not much of a relationship between something like the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and the life of a regular person going about their ...
Astronomy
Oct 24, 2026
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Stellar collision may explain why Orion Nebula's planet-forming disks appear younger than its stars
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 ...
Astronomy
Oct 23, 2026
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Artemis I: Crystals of experimental detectors record radiation doses near the moon
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, ...
Space Exploration
Oct 23, 2026
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Pedal to the metal: NASA's Psyche heads toward asteroid belt
With a successful Mars gravity assist in its rearview mirror, NASA's Psyche spacecraft has fired up its thrusters and is accelerating toward the metal-rich asteroid of the same name. During the first leg of its journey, following ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 23, 2026
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A mineral from the inside of planets reveals a surprising lesson: How you push matters
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 ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 23, 2026
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Curtain-like plasma structures explain solar jets' apparent spinning in simulations
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 ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2026
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Are 'mega-Earths' real? Stellar activity may explain these oversized rocky worlds
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 ...
NASA's CASALS instrument bridges gaps in 3D maps of Earth's surface
A team of researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has developed a new instrument designed to eliminate blind spots between lines of lidar data on Earth's surface. Built with support from NASA's Earth Science ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 21, 2026
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Reexamined Viking 2 signal reveals possible marsquake from region active decades later
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 ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 21, 2026
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Rare solar radiation storm gives scientists clearest picture yet of flight risks
The most comprehensive data set ever collected from Earth's atmosphere during a solar radiation event has highlighted the importance of better-coordinated radiation monitoring for aviation safety, according to new research ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 20, 2026
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'Terror of kings': Why the 1066 appearance of Halley's Comet terrified the medieval world
A sequence on the Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold alongside a crowd gazing at the sky, beneath the embroidered caption Isti mirant stella ("those people marvel at the star"). Above Harold sits Halley's Comet, with ghostlike ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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Water as we've never known it: Physicists test water beyond Earth-like conditions
Water isn't always as it seems. Under extreme conditions, such as those found on other planets, it has been discovered to change its atomic structure, giving it the means to alter its appearance and other properties.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 20, 2026
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Hot plasma may explain how rapidly feeding black holes launch powerful jets
Some supermassive black holes rapidly consume surrounding matter while simultaneously firing powerful streams of plasma into space at nearly the speed of light. However, this creates a physical puzzle: rapid feeding is expected ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2026
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Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active today
Scientists at Columbia University and Imperial College London have found that the largest canyon system in the solar system is still active and shaping Mars today, billions of years after it first formed.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 20, 2026
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The sun may have stripped away meters of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS brought material from another planetary system within reach of our telescopes, but reading its chemistry poses a problem. Energetic particles encountered during its journey through space may ...
Lucy mission marks 5 years of discoveries
On Oct. 16, 2021, NASA's Lucy spacecraft began its journey to the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids with an early morning launch. Now less than a year away from the first-ever close-up of a Trojan, the Southwest ...
Space Exploration
Oct 20, 2026
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Japan launches spacecraft to mysterious moons of Mars in a bold mission to bring home soil samples
A Japanese spacecraft rocketed toward Mars on Tuesday on a quest to explore its mysterious moons and bring back samples.
Space Exploration
Oct 20, 2026
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Planetary 'twins' Uranus and Neptune may have different origin stories
By indirectly probing the depths of Uranus and Neptune's atmospheres, an international team of scientists has revealed a significant contrast in their chemical composition. Neptune appears to be more enriched in oxygen than ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 19, 2026
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More news
Euclid discovers its first new comet 810 million miles from Earth
Auroral structure could be caused by bouncing electrons
Enigmatic Mercury will remain a puzzle until someone sends a lander
Japan to launch world-first mission to moon of Mars
Japan to launch historic round-trip mission to Mars moon
Japan's MMX mission aims to swipe soil samples from Mars's moon Phobos
Japan to launch spacecraft on a mission to get samples from a Martian moon
Simulations explore nuclear mitigation of asteroid threats
Lunar fault maps reveal how much the moon is shrinking
Space waves reveal where Earth's magnetic shield is under pressure
Other news
Hidden chromosome structures reveal greater complexity in how roundworms organize DNA
Diamond defects confirm 80-year-old theory of crystal stress
Metalens microscope switches focus with voltage, not moving optics
New solar model maps sun more accurately by checking far-side activity
The dying sun could tear the solar system apart sooner than thought
Mars' oddest cloud may be even odder than previously thought
RNA archiving method reveals what a cell did days ago
