NASA Archives - Page 8 of 9

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…

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…

Curiosity Rover Images Sun Rays and Feather-Shaped Clouds on Mars

By News Staff March 6, 2023

‘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…

DART Offers Insight into How Deflection Missions Can Protect Earth from Hazardous Asteroids

By News Staff March 2, 2023

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into the 160-m-wide asteroid moonlet Dimorphos — which orbits the larger, 780-m-wide asteroid Didymos — for the first…

Venus’ Outer Shell is Shaping Planet’s Surface, Study Suggests

By News Staff February 24, 2023

Earth has a hot core that heats the surrounding mantle, which carries that heat up to the planet’s lithosphere. The heat is then lost to space, cooling the uppermost region…

Hubble Detects Start of New Saturn Ring Spoke Season

By News Staff February 10, 2023

Saturn is known for its iconic, pristine rings. However, the main B ring can have splotches and streaks of darker or lighter material, known as spokes, that may be tied…

Charon’s Freezing Ocean Produced Huge Canyons on Its Surface, Modeling Study Suggests

By News Staff February 8, 2023

When ocean-bearing moons begin to cool down, their oceans can freeze. As new ice accretes to the bottom of the existing ice shell, the added volume of the ice can…

Trace Gas Detection Sheds New Light on Atmospheres of Jupiter and Its Volcanic Moon Io

By Natali Anderson December 28, 2022

Using data from NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA’s Juno spacecraft, two teams of astronomers have examined the distribution of…

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Records Sound of Martian Dust Devil

By News Staff December 13, 2022

Dust devils — convective vortices loaded with dust — are common at the surface of Mars, particularly at Jezero crater, the landing site of NASA’s Perseverance rover. They are indicators…