Solar System News

August 20, 2016

Venus-Like Exoplanet With O2 Atmosphere?

Venus May Have Once Been Habitable

Mars Gullies Likely Not Formed By Liquid Water

Flooded Canyons on Saturn's Moon Titan

Latest Headlines

updated 11:10am EDT

A New Goldilocks for Habitable Planets

Aug. 19, 2016 — The search for habitable, alien worlds needs to make room for a second 'Goldilocks,' according to a researcher. A new study suggests that simply being in the habitable zone isn't sufficient to ... read more

NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission Completes Design Milestone

Aug. 17, 2016 — Following a key program review, NASA approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to proceed to the next phase of design and development for the mission's robotic segment. ... read more

Evidence of Martian Life Could Be Hard to Find in Some Meteorite Blast Sites

Aug. 8, 2016 — Signs of life from under Mars’ surface may not survive in rocks excavated by some meteorite impacts, scientists suggest at the point of preliminary ... read more

'GPS in Space': Bringing Autonomous Interplanetary Travel Closer to Reality

Aug. 4, 2016 — An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as new research reveals that a spacecraft's position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated ... read more

Most Volcanic Activity on Mercury Stopped About 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Aug. 5, 2016 — New research finds that major volcanic activity on the planet Mercury most likely ended about 3.5 billion years ago. These findings add insight into the geological evolution ... read more

Veins on Mars Were Formed by Evaporating Ancient Lakes

Aug. 5, 2016 — Mineral veins found in Mars's Gale Crater were formed by the evaporation of ancient Martian lakes, a new study ... read more

Most Likely Earth-Like Exoplanets Cataloged

Aug. 3, 2016 — An international team of researchers has pinpointed which of the more than 4,000 exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are most likely to be similar to Earth. The ... read more

Space Scientists Observe Io's Atmospheric Collapse During Eclipse

Aug. 2, 2016 — Astronomers have documented atmospheric changes on Io, Jupiter's volcanically active satellite, as the giant planet casts its shadow over the moon's surface during ... read more

Apollo Astronauts Experiencing Higher Rates of Cardiovascular-Related Deaths

July 28, 2016 — Members of the successful Apollo space program are experiencing higher rates of cardiovascular problems that are thought to be caused by their ... read more

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Heats Planet's Upper Atmosphere

July 27, 2016 — Researchers have discovered that Jupiter's Great Red Spot may provide the mysterious source of energy required to heat the planet's upper atmosphere to the unusually high ... read more

NASA Set to Launch Mission for Asteroid Sample

Sky-High Pic Du Midi Offers Tourists Stellar Views

NASA's Mars Mission Might Be In Trouble

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is So Loud It Heats Up The Planet

Puzzling Paucity of Large Craters on Dwarf Planet Ceres

July 26, 2016 — A team of scientists has made a puzzling observation while studying the size and distribution of craters on the dwarf planet Ceres -- the largest object in the tumultuous Main Asteroid Belt between ... read more

Digging Deeper Into Mars

July 25, 2016 — Scientists continue to unravel the mystery of life on Mars by investigating evidence of water in the planet's soil. Previous observations of soil observed along crater slopes on Mars showed a ... read more

Asteroid That Formed Moon's Imbrium Basin May Have Been Protoplanet-Sized

July 20, 2016 — The asteroid that slammed into the moon 3.8 billion years ago creating the Imbrium Basin may have had a diameter of at least 150 miles, according to a new estimate. The work helps explain puzzling ... read more

NASA's Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission

July 18, 2016 — Scientists report the largest haul of confirmed planets - tallying more than a hundred -- since NASA's Kepler space telescope switched from staring into one patch of sky to detecting planets ... read more

Warm Jupiters Not as Lonely as Expected

July 14, 2016 — After analyzing four years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called 'Warm Jupiters,' showing that ... read more

Stellar Outburst Brings Water Snowline Around a Young Star Into View

July 13, 2016 — A violent outburst by the young star V883 Orionis has given astronomers using ALMA their first view of a water 'snowline' in a protoplanetary disk -- the transition point around the star ... read more

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Sends First in-Orbit View

July 12, 2016 — The JunoCam camera aboard NASA's Juno mission is operational and sending down data after the spacecraft's July 4 arrival at Jupiter. Juno's visible-light camera was turned on six days ... read more

NASA Camera Catches Moon 'Photobombing' Earth

July 11, 2016 — For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the DSCOVR satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. From its position between the sun and ... read more

Astronomers Discover New Distant Dwarf Planet Beyond Neptune

July 11, 2016 — Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf planet orbiting in the disk of small icy worlds beyond Neptune. The new object is about 700 km in diameter and has one of the largest orbits for a dwarf ... read more

Dawn Maps Ceres Craters Where Ice Can Accumulate

July 8, 2016 — Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission have identified permanently shadowed regions on the dwarf planet Ceres where ice deposits could exist ... read more

Surprising Planet With Three Suns Discovered

July 7, 2016 — A team of astronomers have used the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope to image the first planet ever found in a wide orbit inside a triple-star system. The orbit of such a planet ... read more

Chemical Trail on Saturn's Moon Titan May Be Key to Prebiotic Conditions

July 6, 2016 — Scientists have uncovered a chemical trail that suggests prebiotic conditions may exist on Saturn's largest moon Titan. This moon features terrain with Earthlike attributes such as lakes, rivers ... read more

Lush Venus? Searing Earth? It Could Have Happened

July 5, 2016 — It may not have taken much in the early solar system to set Earth and Venus on very different paths, according to researchers. A new paper points the way toward what scientists should consider as ... read more

NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter

July 5, 2016 — After an almost five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter's orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. With its suite of ... read more

A Giant Impact: Solving the Mystery of How Mars' Moons Formed

July 4, 2016 — Where did the two natural satellites of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, come from? For a long time, their shape suggested that they were asteroids captured by Mars. However, the shape and course of their ... read more

NASA’s Juno and JEDI: Ready to Unlock Mysteries of Jupiter

July 1, 2016 — The JEDI is one of several instruments aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft -- set to enter Jupiter orbit on July 4 -- that will help scientists answer fundamental questions about the solar ... read more

Jupiter on a Bench: Spacecraft Juno Nears Planet Orbit

June 30, 2016 — Earlier this year, in an experiment about five-feet long, researchers say they observed evidence of the abrupt transition of hydrogen from liquid insulator to liquid metal. It is one of the first ... read more

A Bewildering Form of Sand Dune Discovered on Mars

June 30, 2016 — Some of the wind-sculpted sand ripples on Mars are a type not seen on Earth, and their relationship to the thin Martian atmosphere provides new clues about the atmosphere's ... read more

Hubble Captures Vivid Auroras in Jupiter’s Atmosphere

June 30, 2016 — Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras -- stunning light shows in a planet's atmosphere -- on the poles of the largest planet in the Solar System, ... read more