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Categories: Space: The Solar System

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New research has confirmed the frequency of asteroid collisions that formed impact craters on Mars has been consistent over the past 600 million years.

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A scientist recently set out to prove that the tiny, innermost moon of Saturn was a frozen inert satellite and instead discovered compelling evidence that Mimas has a liquid internal ocean. In the waning days of NASA's Cassini mission, the spacecraft identified a curious libration, or oscillation, in the moon's rotation, which often points to a geologically active body able to support an internal ocean.

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NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012, and since then has roamed Gale Crater taking samples and sending the results back home for researchers to interpret. Analysis of carbon isotopes in sediment samples taken from half a dozen exposed locations, including an exposed cliff, leave researchers with three plausible explanations for the carbon's origin -- cosmic dust, ultraviolet degradation of carbon dioxide, or ultraviolet degradation of biologically produced methane.

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Organic molecules found in a meteorite that hurtled to Earth from Mars were synthesized during interactions between water and rocks that occurred on the Red Planet about 4 billion years ago, according to new analysis.

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A new study reveals how the diminutive Moon could have been an occasional magnetic powerhouse early in its history, a question that has confounded researchers since NASA's Apollo program began in the 1960s.

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Scientists have shown how the freezing of a 'slushy' ocean of magma may be responsible for the composition of the Moon's crust.

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Researchers find high-energy oxygen and sulfur ions in Jupiter's inner radiation belts -- and a previously unknown ion source.

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With the help of the CHEOPS space telescope, an international team was able to detect the deformation of an exoplanet for the first time. Due to strong tidal forces, the appearance of the planet WASP-103b resembles a rugby ball rather than a sphere.

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Images from NASA's June Spacecraft have given oceanographers the raw materials for a new study that describes the rich turbulence at Jupiter's poles and the physical forces that drive the large cyclones.

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Cosmochemists now present the most comprehensive comparison to date of the isotopic composition of Earth, Mars and pristine building material from the inner and outer Solar System.

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MIT aerospace engineers are testing a concept for a hovering rover that levitates by harnessing the moon's natural charge. The design uses tiny ion beams to charge up the vehicle and the surface underneath, with little power needed. Such an ion boost could be strong enough to levitate a 2-pound vehicle on the moon and large asteroids.

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A new study supports the longstanding idea that if life exists, it might make a home in Venus' clouds. The study's authors identified a chemical pathway by which life could neutralize Venus' acidic environment, creating a self-sustaining, habitable pocket in the clouds.

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Scientists have unraveled a fascinating new insight into how the landscape of the dwarf-planet Pluto has formed.

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Sophisticated analysis of a rock sample taken from the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission revealed new information about the complex cooling and evolutionary history of the Moon. The diffusion patterns preserved in the mineral grains were consistent with a rapid cooling history of no more than 20-million-years at high temperatures. The finding challenges previous estimates of a 100-million-year cooling duration and supports initial rapid cooling of magmas within the lunar crust.

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On April 28, 2021, NASA's Parker Solar Probe reached the sun's extended solar atmosphere, known as the corona, and spent five hours there. The spacecraft is the first to enter the outer boundaries of our sun.

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Last year, scientists looked on as a star called EK Draconis ejected a massive burst of energy and charged particles many times more powerful than anything recorded on Earth's sun. Such explosive events may have been common in the early years of our solar system, the researchers say.

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The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot -- until now.

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The dusty surface of the moon -- immortalized in images of Apollo astronauts' lunar footprints -- formed as the result of asteroid impacts and the harsh environment of space breaking down rock over millions of years. An ancient layer of this material, covered by periodic lava flows and now buried under the lunar surface, could provide new insight into the Moon's deep past, according to a team of scientists.

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Scientists recently discovered that water was once present in a region of Mars called Arabia Terra.

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About 1000 days after the Mars InSight mission deployed SEIS, the first seismometer on the red planet, researchers are analyzing new seismic data and reporting on instrument responses, using these data to plan for future planetary seismographs.