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" ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 15, 2026
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29
The European Space Agency's Mars Express has spotted a swath of metallic-looking waves filling Mars's large Kaiser Crater—an ancient and otherworldly dune field sculpted by wind.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 15, 2026
0
39
What does it take to catch up with a small, tumbling rock hundreds of thousands of kilometers from Earth? For China's Tianwen-2 mission, the answer was a 400-day chase covering roughly 1 billion kilometers (621 million miles) ...
Space Exploration
Jul 15, 2026
0
23
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 ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 14, 2026
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25
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.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 14, 2026
0
17
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 ...
Astrobiology
Jul 14, 2026
0
8
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 ...
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.
Space Exploration
Jul 13, 2026
2
91
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.
Astronomy
Jul 13, 2026
0
26
After decades of analyzing reams of lunar rocks back here on Earth, the canonical view of the moon was that it was anhydrous; that it had extraordinarily little water. That all began to change in 2009 with new data from NASA's ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 13, 2026
0
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