ESA’s JUICE Spacecraft Sends Its First Images from Space
ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) has taken its first monitoring camera images showing part of the spacecraft with our home planet as a stunning backdrop. This image was taken…
Vikings Abandoned Southwest Greenland Due in Part to Sea-Level Rise, New Research Suggests
The first records of Greenland Vikings date to 985 CE. Archaeological evidence yields insight into how they lived, yet drivers of their disappearance in the 15th century remain enigmatic. Hypotheses…
Local Tectonic Activity Could Cause Landslides on Icy Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn
Intense tectonism is evident on many outer solar system satellites — such as Ganymede, Europa, and Enceladus — with some surface regions showing ridge-and-trough structures which have characteristics suggestive of…
ESA’s JUICE Spacecraft Launches to Study Jupiter’s Icy Moons
ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, the JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (JUICE), lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, at 14:14 CEST on April 14, 2023, to begin its eight-year…
Saturn’s Rings are Heating Gas Giant’s Upper Atmosphere, Astronomers Say
The most feasible explanation is that icy ring particles raining down onto Saturn’s atmosphere cause this heating, according to a team of astronomers who analyzed several datasets obtained by the…
Venus is Home to At Least 85,000 Volcanoes, Planetary Researchers Say
There are many thousands of volcanoes on the surface of Venus. These volcanoes provide clues into the interior properties of the planet, properties that are otherwise largely inaccessible to scientists…
Impact Glass Beads from the Moon Contain Solar Wind-Derived Water, Study Shows
Scientists from China and the United States have analyzed the impact glass beads from a lunar soil sample returned by China’s Chang’e-5 mission. Asteroid and comet impacts are the major…
Scientists Explain Why Jupiter’s and Saturn’s Icy Moons Have Extreme Radar Properties
The radar properties of icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn commonly differ by more than an order of magnitude from those of rocky planets because of the lower absorptivity of…
Scientists Find Vitamin B3 and Uracil in Samples from Asteroid Ryugu
An international team of researchers has detected nicotinic acid (also known as vitamin B3 or niacin) and uracil, one of the four nucleobases in ribonucleic acid, in aqueous extracts from…
Relict Glacier Spotted near Martian Equator
A so-called light-toned deposit (LTD) in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus, about 160 km (99.4 miles) north-west of Oudemans crater near Mars’ equator, presents distinctive morphologic characteristics of a glacier, according to…