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…
Sabaean Inscription Points to Connections between King Solomon’s Israel and Kingdom of Sheba
During the 2012 excavations in Jerusalem, Israel, a partially preserved inscription engraved on the shoulder of a pithos was found in a context dated to the 10th century BCE. Although…
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…
Copper Production Turned Bronze Age Cypriot Village into Interregional Trade Hub
Field works at Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus, shed light on the scope of interregional trade in which this Bronze Age harbor city participated from the 15th to the 12th centuries…
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…