Planetary Science

Astronomy

86 stars get official names

The International Astronomical Union has released 86 newly official star names, based, in part, on historical star names from various indigenous cultures.

Planetary Science

Here’s what you might have missed in space this year

Missions to Jupiter and Saturn made big headlines, and 2017 also saw exciting updates from missions of years past.

Astronomy

NASA’s next stop will be Titan or a comet

The finalists for NASA’s next solar system mission aim to send a drone to Saturn’s largest moon or to return samples from a comet.

Planetary Science

Saturn’s rings are surprisingly young and may be from shredded moons

Final data from the Cassini spacecraft put a date and a mass on the gas giant’s iconic rings.

Astronomy

New Horizons’ next target might have a moon

New Horizons’ next target, Kuiper Belt object MU69, may have a small moon.

Planetary Science

Jupiter’s massive Great Red Spot is at least 350 kilometers deep

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has measured the depth of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot for the first time.

Earth

Watching this newborn island erode could tell us a lot about Mars

The birth and death of a young volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean may shed light on the origins of volcanoes in Mars’ wetter past.

Planetary Science

Saturn’s rings mess with the gas giant’s atmosphere

Data from Cassini’s shallow dives into Saturn’s ionosphere show that this charged layer in the atmosphere interacts with the planet’s rings.

Astronomy

Most complete map of Titan reveals connected seas and cookie-cutter lakes

The latest map of Titan, based on all the data from the Cassini spacecraft, displays new details about the moon’s lakes and seas.

Astronomy

We still don’t know where the first interstellar asteroid came from

Astronomers are tracking stars to see if one of them launched the first interstellar asteroid at Earth.

Astronomy

Here is Cassini’s last broad look at the Saturn system

Two days before plunging into Saturn, Cassini took a mosaic image of the gas giant, its rings and its moons.

Astronomy

Haze keeps Pluto cool by kicking heat out to space

Pluto may be the only place in the solar system whose atmosphere is kept cool by solid hazes, not warmed by gas.