Planetary Science

  1. 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.

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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  4. 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.

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  5. Planetary Science

    Jupiter’s magnetic field is surprisingly weird

    New results from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal different magnetic behavior in the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres.

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  6. Planetary Science

    The massive Mars dust storm is waning. Now, will Opportunity wake?

    With a global dust storm on Mars finally passing, NASA hopes that its Opportunity rover will soon phone home.

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  7. Planetary Science

    New Horizons has sent back the first images of Ultima Thule, its next target

    NASA probe gets its first look at distant Kuiper Belt object

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  8. Planetary Science

    OSIRIS-REx snaps first images of asteroid Bennu

    OSIRIS-REx got its first glimpse of near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The probe will collect a sample from the asteroid and return it to Earth.

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  9. Planetary Science

    Here’s where the Hayabusa2 spacecraft will land on the asteroid Ryugu

    Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe and its landers will touch down on the asteroid Ryugu in the next few months to pick up dust samples and return them to Earth.

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  10. Astronomy

    New Horizons may have seen a glow at the solar system’s edge

    New Horizons may have seen a hydrogen wall just past the edge of the solar system, where the solar wind meets the stuff of interstellar space.

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  11. Planetary Science

    What does Mars’ lake mean for the search for life on the Red Planet?

    A lake spotted hiding under Martian ice could support life, but finding out if anything lives there could be challenging.

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  12. Planetary Science

    Mars (probably) has a lake of liquid water

    A 15-year-old Mars orbiter has spotted signs of a salty lake beneath the Red Planet’s south polar ice sheets.

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