Planetary Science Archives - Page 10 of 12

Local Tectonic Activity Could Cause Landslides on Icy Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn

By News Staff April 17, 2023

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…

Saturn’s Rings are Heating Gas Giant’s Upper Atmosphere, Astronomers Say

By News Staff March 30, 2023

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

By News Staff March 30, 2023

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

By News Staff March 29, 2023

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

By News Staff March 23, 2023

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

By News Staff March 22, 2023

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

By News Staff March 20, 2023

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…

Study Offers New Insights into Extraterrestrial Origins of Earth’s Water

By News Staff March 16, 2023

In new research, planetary scientists from the University of Maryland and elsewhere analyzed melted meteorites that had been floating around in space since the Solar System’s formation around 4.5 billion…

Venus Has Ongoing Active Volcanism, New Study Confirms

By News Staff March 15, 2023

Planetary scientists have examined volcanic areas on Venus that were imaged two or three times by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and identified a 2.2-km2 volcanic vent that changed shape in the…

Rotation of Europa’s Ice Shell May Be Controlled By Dynamics of Subsurface Ocean: Study

By News Staff March 14, 2023

The subsurface ocean of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is heated from below via tidal heating and radioactive decay of the rocky interior, while being cooled from above by its frozen…