Webb Observes Enceladus’ Water Vapor Plume
As Enceladus orbits rapidly around Saturn with a period of only 1.37 Earth days, the ejected water vapor is spread along and around its orbit, forming a large torus around…
Saturn’s Rings are No More Than Few Hundred Million Years Old, Scientists Say
Saturn’s ring system may well have formed when dinosaurs were still walking on the Earth, and will last only another few hundred million years at most, according to two new…
ShadowCam Captures Spectacular Photos of Moon’s South Polar Region
NASA’s ShadowCam instrument is flying with five other instruments aboard KARI’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri, which launched on August 4, 2022. This image of Shackleton…
InSight Detects Seismic Waves Traveling through Martian Liquid Core
Mars has a liquid iron alloy core at its center. Using seismic data gathered by NASA’s InSight lander, planetary scientists have made the first observations of seismic waves traveling through…
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…
Venus Has Ongoing Active Volcanism, New Study Confirms
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
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…
Curiosity Rover Images Sun Rays and Feather-Shaped Clouds on Mars
‘Sun rays’ are also known as crepuscular rays, from the Latin word for twilight. It was the first time sun rays have been so clearly viewed on Mars. This feather-shaped…