Planetary Science
- Planetary Science
Violent Past: Young sun withstood a supernova blast
A big bully pummeled the infant solar system, first by blasting it with a massive wind, then by exploding nearby, driving shock waves into the fledgling solar system and irrevocably altering its chemistry.
- Planetary Science
Water World: Extrasolar planet is loaded with hot ice
Astronomers have found a Neptune-size planet outside the solar system that's composed mainly of water solidified under high pressure.
- Planetary Science
Liquid Center: Mercury has a molten core, radar reveals
Mercury is hot stuff: It's got a core that's at least partially molten, a new radar study of the planet's spin reveals.
- Planetary Science
A solar forecast
Solar activity, which waxes and wanes in an 11-year cycle, will most likely begin its next round in March 2008 and peak sometime between late 2011 and mid 2012.
- Planetary Science
In the Zone: Extrasolar planet with the potential for life
Astronomers this week announced that they had found Earth's closest known analog outside the solar system, an object with an average temperature that may allow water to be liquid on its surface.
- Planetary Science
A hexagon on the ringed planet
NASA scientists are puzzled by a giant, hexagon-shaped feature that covers Saturn's entire north pole.
- Planetary Science
Northern Exposure: The inhospitable side of the galaxy?
Our solar system's periodic motion from one side of the galaxy to the other could expose life on Earth to massive amounts of cosmic rays and cause recurring, catastrophic mass extinctions.
- Planetary Science
Little Enceladus disturbs Saturn’s magnetic field
Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus is acting as a brake on the giant planet's magnetic field.
- Planetary Science
Cavernous findings from Mars
Images taken by a Mars-orbiting spacecraft show what appear to be caves on the Red Planet.
- Planetary Science
No Escape: There’s global warming on Mars too
The overall darkening of Mars' surface in recent decades has significantly raised the Red Planet's temperature, a possible cause for the substantial, recent shrinkage of the planet's southern ice cap.
- Planetary Science
Radar probes frozen water at Martian pole
If all the frozen water stored near the south pole of Mars suddenly melted, it would make a planetwide ocean 11 meters deep.
- Planetary Science
Solar-staring spacecraft shows its flare
A new image of the sun's chromosphere, a layer sandwiched between the sun's visible surface and its outer atmosphere, shows a surprisingly complex structure of filaments of roiling gas that promises to shed new light on why the sun erupts.
