Watch First-Ever Livestream from Mars
On June 2, 2023, to celebrate the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, you’ll have the chance to get as close as it’s currently possible get to a live view…
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…
ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Sees Fissured Flanks of Mars’ Second-Tallest Volcano
Ascraeus Mons is the northernmost and tallest of three prominent volcanoes found in the Tharsis region of Mars, a volcanic plateau in the planet’s western hemisphere. This image from ESA’s…
Genetically Modified Rice Could Actually Grow in Martian Regolith, New Study Suggests
One of the biggest challenges to growing food on Mars is the presence of perchlorate salts, which have been detected in the Martian regolith (soil) and are generally considered to…
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…
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…
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…