Planetary Science
- Planetary Science
Exploring Mars
Here’s your chance to help NASA explore the surface of Mars. At its Marsoweb site, the agency provides detailed maps, engineering data, and interactive tools for studying the Red Planet’s alien terrain. Visitors are invited to look for and report important geologic features that haven’t yet been catalogued or even viewed by researchers. Go to: […]
By Science News - Planetary Science
A really cool map
A new infrared image of Saturn's rings provides the most detailed temperature map ever taken of these icy particles.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Martian ice could be sculpting surface patterns
Images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggest that most areas with geological features known as patterned ground appear at high latitudes.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
Saturn Watch: Cassini finds two new moons and lightning
The Cassini spacecraft has detected two moons that may be the smallest ever found around Saturn as well as changes in the character of lightning first detected in Saturn's atmosphere in the early 1980s.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Finding a lunar meteorite’s home
Scientists have for the first time pinpointed the source of a meteorite that came from the moon.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
The sound of rings
When Cassini reached Saturn on June 30, it twice dashed through a gap in the planet's rings, and onboard science instruments recorded a flurry of ring dust harmlessly striking the spacecraft.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Meteorites quickly reach Earth
Fragments from collisions between large bodies in the asteroid belt can reach Earth in as little as 100,000 years.
By Sid Perkins - Planetary Science
A little bit of Mars on Earth
Scouring an ice field in Antarctica, scientists have made the latest discovery of a chunk of rock that was blasted from Mars and fell to Earth.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Titanic Images, Groovy Shots: Cassini arrives at Saturn
After a 7-year, 3.5-billion-mile journey, the Cassini spacecraft last week slipped through a gap between two of the icy rings circling Saturn and became the first spacecraft to orbit the distant planet.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Cometary encounter
Planetary scientists are feasting on close-up images of Comet Wild 2 as well as on the first information about its composition.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
NASA postpones plans for Mars samples
Still reeling from the failure of its two most recent missions to Mars, NASA announced late last month that it would delay by nearly a decade plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
When storms collide on Jupiter
Astronomers have for the first time witnessed two giant storms merging on Jupiter.
By Ron Cowen