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 ...
Astrobiology
Nov 2, 2026
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97
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 ...
Space Exploration
Nov 1, 2026
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111
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 ...
Among Kepler and TESS's many surprising exoplanet discoveries are the ultra-short-period (USP) planets. These planets move very quickly and complete an orbit in less than 24 hours. Ancient astronomers thought that Mercury ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 31, 2026
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50
NASA's TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission has gathered its first clues to how space weather affects Earth's magnetic field. In a new paper published in the Journal of ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 30, 2026
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16
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.
Astrobiology
Oct 29, 2026
0
127
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 ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 29, 2026
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15
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.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 29, 2026
0
141
As NASA works toward a sustained human presence on the moon, researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, are helping solve one of the most pressing challenges ...
Space Exploration
Oct 29, 2026
0
14
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 ...
Astronomy
Oct 29, 2026
0
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