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Categories: Physics: Acoustics and Ultrasound, Space: The Solar System

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A type of Martian aurora first identified by NASA's MAVEN spacecraft in 2016 is actually the most common form of aurora occurring on the Red Planet, according to new results from the mission. The aurora is known as a proton aurora and can help scientists track water loss from Mars' atmosphere.

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Slashed across the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus are four straight, parallel fissures or 'tiger stripes' from which water erupts. These fissures aren't quite like anything else in the Solar System. Researchers now think they have a model to explain them.

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The first evidence of a giant planet orbiting a dead white dwarf star has been found in the form of a disc of gas formed from its evaporating atmosphere.

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Scientists studying the weather and climate of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, have reported a significant seasonal variation in its energy budget, a finding which could yield new insights into climate on Earth.

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Measurements taken by the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft are providing important new insights from some of the farthest reaches of space ever explored. Astronomers now show how the solar wind -- the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun -- evolves at increasing distances from the Sun.

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Even by the wild standards of the outer solar system, the strange orbits that carry Neptune's two innermost moons are unprecedented, according to newly published research.

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Researchers using telescopes around the world confirmed and characterized an exoplanet orbiting a nearby star through a rare phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing. The exoplanet has a mass similar to Neptune, but it orbits a star lighter (cooler) than the Sun at an orbital radius similar to Earth's orbital radius. The results of this research suggest that Neptune-sized planets could be common around this orbital region.

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Astronomers using ESO's SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the asteroid Hygiea could be classified as a dwarf planet. The object is the fourth largest in the asteroid belt after Ceres, Vesta and Pallas. For the first time, astronomers have observed Hygiea in sufficiently high resolution to study its surface and determine its shape and size. They found that Hygiea is spherical, potentially taking the crown from Ceres as the smallest dwarf planet in the solar system.

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Astronomers exposed acetylene ice -- a chemical that is used on Earth in welding torches and exists at Titan's equatorial regions -- at low temperatures to proxies of high-energy galactic cosmic rays.

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Move over Jupiter; Saturn is the new moon king. A team has found 20 new moons orbiting Saturn. This brings the ringed planet's total number of moons to 82, surpassing Jupiter, which has 79.

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No one knows for certain when Saturn's iconic rings formed, but a new study suggests that they are much older than some scientists think.

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Saturn is so beautiful that astronomers cannot resist using the Hubble Space Telescope to take yearly snapshots of the ringed world when it is at its closest distance to Earth. These images, however, are more than just beauty shots. They reveal a planet with a turbulent, dynamic atmosphere.

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Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft may help explain why some methane-filled lakes on Saturn's moon Titan are surrounded by steep rims that reach hundreds of feet high. The models suggests that explosions of warming nitrogen created basins in the moon's crust.

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NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has discovered three new worlds that are among the smallest, nearest exoplanets known to date. The planets orbit a star just 73 light years away and include a small, rocky super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes -- planets about half the size of our own icy giant.

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Researchers from Southern Methodist University (SMU) could help determine if Saturn's icy moon -- Titan -- has ever been home to life long before NASA completes an exploratory visit to its surface by a drone helicopter.

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Two NASA space telescopes have identified the detailed chemical 'fingerprint' of a planet between the sizes of Earth and Neptune. No planets like this can be found in our own solar system, but they are common around other stars.

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A team studied the orientation of distant solar system bodies to bolster the 'streaming instability' theory of planet formation.

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Beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune, there are a multitude of icy and rocky small bodies, smaller than planets but larger than comets. These likely formed at the same time as the Solar System, and understanding their origin could provide important clues as to how the entire Solar System originated. Using sophisticated computer simulations and observations of TNOs, astronomers have shown how these so-called trans-Neptunian Objects (or TNOs) may have formed.

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The frigid lakeshores of Saturn's moon Titan might be encrusted with strange, unearthly minerals, according to new research.

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Two telescopes have measured the faint heat from the main, or epsilon ring, of Uranus, enabling astronomers for the first time to determine its temperature: a cool 77 Kelvin. Earlier images of the rings came from reflected light only. The observations also show that the rings lack dust, which is common in the rings of other planets, and are composed of centimeter-sized particles and larger.