Planetary Science Stories
Old Data Yields New Secrets as NASA’s DAVINCI Preps for Venus Trip
How NASA's DAVINCI mission to Venus uses old data to reveal new secrets.
Could Life Exist Below Mars Ice? NASA Study Proposes Possibilities
Researchers think meltwater beneath Martian ice could support microbial life. While actual evidence for life on Mars has never been found, a new NASA study proposes microbes could find a potential home beneath frozen water on the planet’s surface. Through…
Journey to a Water World: NASA’s Europa Clipper Is Ready to Launch
Find details about the launch sequences for the orbiter, which is targeting an Oct. 14 liftoff on its mission to search for ingredients of life at Jupiter’s moon Europa. In less than 24 hours, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is slated…
Can Life Exist on an Icy Moon? NASA’s Europa Clipper Aims to Find Out
With a spacecraft launching soon, the mission will try to answer the question of whether there are ingredients suitable for life in the ocean below Europa’s icy crust. Deep down, in an ocean beneath its ice shell, Jupiter’s moon Europa…
NASA’s Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of…
NASA’s Hubble Watches Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball
Astronomers have observed Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises – especially when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes a close-up look at it.…
Four Asteroids Named After NASA Volunteers
Four amateur astronomers working on NASA’s citizen science project, The Daily Minor Planet, were honored for their contributions to astronomy and planetary science by having asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter named after them. These volunteers reviewed…
NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable
NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that…
Culturally Inclusive Planetary Engagement in Colorado
In August 2024, the NASA Science Activation program’s Planetary Resources and Content Heroes (ReaCH) project held a Culturally Inclusive Planetary Engagement workshop at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado for the planetary science community. These workshops…
NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P
Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the…