Tag: Planetary Science
-
NASA’s Dragonfly Mission Sets Sights on Titan’s Mysteries
When it descends through the thick golden haze on Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft will find eerily familiar terrain. Dunes wrap around Titan’s equator. Clouds drift across its skies. Rain drizzles. Rivers flow, forming canyons, lakes and seas. But…
-
Eye on Infinity: NASA Celebrates Hubble’s 35th Year in Orbit
In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35 years in Earth orbit, NASA is releasing an assortment of compelling images recently taken by Hubble, stretching from the planet Mars to star-forming regions, and a neighboring galaxy. After more than three…
-
Hubble Helps Determine Uranus’ Rotation Rate with Unprecedented Precision
An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made new measurements of Uranus’ interior rotation rate with a novel technique, achieving a level of accuracy 1,000 times greater than previous estimates. By analyzing more than a…
-
20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights
The ice-giant planet Uranus, which travels around the Sun tipped on its side, is a weird and mysterious world. Now, in an unprecedented study spanning two decades, researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new insights into the planet’s…
-
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules Found on Mars
Lee esta historia en español aquí. Researchers analyzing pulverized rock onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover have found the largest organic compounds on the Red Planet to date. The finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests…
-
NASA DAVINCI Mission’s Many ‘Firsts’ to Unlock Venus’ Hidden Secrets
NASA’s DAVINCI probe will be first in the 21st century to brave Venus’ atmosphere as it descends from above the planet down to its surface.
-
NASA-Led Team Links Comet Water to Earth’s Oceans
Scientists find that cometary dust affects interpretation of spacecraft measurements, reopening the case for comets like 67P as potential sources of water for early Earth. Researchers have found that water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the…
-
Old Data Yields New Secrets as NASA’s DAVINCI Preps for Venus Trip
How NASA’s DAVINCI mission to Venus uses old data to reveal new secrets.
-
NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water
Mars was once a very wet planet as is evident in its surface geological features. Scientists know that over the last 3 billion years, at least some water went deep underground, but what happened to the rest? Now, NASA’s Hubble…
-
NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System
In studying data collected from NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission’s science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target…