Planetary Science
- Astronomy
One of Earth’s shimmering dust clouds has been spotted at last
Almost 60 years after a Polish astronomer spotted clouds of dust orbiting Earth near the moon, astronomers have detected those clouds again.
- Planetary Science
China is about to visit uncharted territory on the moon
The next two Chinese missions to the moon will visit places no spacecraft has been before. The rest of the world wants a piece of the lunar action.
- Planetary Science
Hints of Oort clouds around other stars may lurk in the universe’s first light
Sifting through the universe’s early light could reveal planetary graveyards orbiting other stars.
- Planetary Science
Dawn, the first spacecraft to orbit 2 alien worlds, has gone silent
The Dawn probe, which hopped between two objects in the asteroid belt during its seven-year mission, ran out of fuel and stopped calling home.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s moon Dione has stripes like no others in the solar system
Icy moon Dione has long, thin, bright lines at its equator that run surprisingly parallel to each other for tens to hundreds of kilometers.
- Planetary Science
Spiky ice spires may stud the equator of Jupiter’s moon Europa
Fields of jagged ice spires, if they exist, could affect where future spacecraft land on the Jovian moon.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s ‘ring rain’ is a surprising cocktail of chemicals
NASA’s Cassini probe got a closeup view of the material falling from Saturn’s rings into the planet. The data could help illuminate the belts’ origins.
- Earth
Christopher Hamilton explores the architecture of other worlds
Planetary scientist Christopher Hamilton uses Earth’s volcanic structures are a blueprint for how lava shapes other worlds.
- Planetary Science
Readers contemplate water on Mars and more
Readers had questions about the significance of finding water on mars, air pollution from wildfires and spray-on sensors.
- Planetary Science
The first rovers to explore an asteroid just sent photos home
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has deployed a pair of rovers to the surface of asteroid Ryugu.
- Planetary Science
The ghosts of nearly two dozen icy volcanoes haunt dwarf planet Ceres
The slumped remains of 21 ice volcanoes suggest that the dwarf planet Ceres has been volcanically active for billions of years.
- Planetary Science
Saturn has two hexagons, not one, swirling around its north pole
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spied a vortex growing high over Saturn’s north pole, whose hexagonal shape mirrors a famous underlying cyclone.
