Solar System News

October 14, 2016

Tatooine Worlds Are Ultimate Survivors

Jupiter’s Spooky Sounds

Saturn’s Moon Dione Has a Subsurface Ocean

Final Descent Image from Rosetta Spacecraft

Latest Headlines

updated 8:41am EDT

Rosetta Instrument Provided First-Ever Ultraviolet Observations of a Comet

Sep. 29, 2016 — After a two-year orbital tour around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft -- carrying the Alice ultraviolet spectrograph -- will end its mission on Sept. ... read more

Curiosity Finds Evidence of Mars Crust Contributing to Atmosphere

Sep. 29, 2016 — NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence that chemistry in the surface material on Mars contributed dynamically to the makeup of its atmosphere over time. It's another clue ... read more

Rosetta May Be Crashing, but Its Legacy Lives on Here on Earth

Sep. 28, 2016 — ESA's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014, following a ten-year journey through the Solar System after its launch on 2 March 2004. ... read more

Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

Sep. 26, 2016 — Astronomers have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy ... read more

Pluto's 'Heart' Sheds Light on Possible Buried Ocean

Sep. 24, 2016 — Ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell. Now, by ... read more

Colorful Demise of a Sun-Like Star

Sep. 23, 2016 — Our sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris, but not for another 5 ... read more

Hubble Finds Planet Orbiting Pair of Stars

Sep. 22, 2016 — Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and a trick of nature, have confirmed the existence of a planet orbiting two stars in the system OGLE-2007-BLG-349, located ... read more

NASA Scientists Find 'Impossible' Cloud on Titan -- Again

Sep. 21, 2016 — The puzzling appearance of an ice cloud seemingly out of thin air has prompted NASA scientists to suggest that a different process than previously thought -- possibly similar ... read more

Earthquakes, ‘Mars-Quakes,’ and the Possibility of Life

Sep. 20, 2016 — A new study shows that rocks formed by the grinding together of other rocks during earthquakes are rich in trapped hydrogen -- a finding that suggests similar seismic ... read more

Pluto's Glaciers: Large Heart-Shaped Nitrogen Glacier Explained

Sep. 19, 2016 — What is the origin of the large heart-shaped nitrogen glacier revealed in 2015 on Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft? Astronomers show that Pluto's peculiar insolation and ... read more

Scientists Found A New Dwarf Planet In Our Solar System

With Evidence This Close, NASA Has To Warn It Hasn't Found Aliens

Congress Could Make A Manned Mission To Mars Mandatory

Giant Meteorite Found in Argentina

Origin of Minor Planets' Rings Revealed

Sep. 16, 2016 — A team of researchers has clarified the origin of the rings recently discovered around two minor planets known as centaurs, and their results suggest the existence of rings around other ... read more

Cassini Begins Epic Final Year at Saturn

Sep. 15, 2016 — After more than 12 years studying Saturn, its rings and moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage. The conclusion of the historic scientific odyssey is ... read more

Some Ancient Mars Lakes Formed Long After Others

Sep. 15, 2016 — Lakes and snowmelt-fed streams on Mars formed much later than previously thought possible, according to new findings. The recently discovered lakes and streams appeared roughly a billion years after ... read more

Gaia’s Billion Star Maps Hints at Treasures to Come

Sep. 15, 2016 — The first catalog of more than a billion stars from ESA's Gaia satellite was just published -- the largest all-sky survey of celestial objects to ... read more

X-Ray Detection Sheds New Light on Pluto

Sep. 14, 2016 — Scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have made the first detections of X-rays from Pluto. These observations offer new insight into the space environment surrounding the largest and ... read more

Pluto 'Paints' Its Largest Moon Red

Sep. 14, 2016 — In June 2015, when the cameras on NASA's approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two ... read more

Icy Giant Planet Growing Around a Nearby Star

Sep. 14, 2016 — Astronomers found signs of a growing planet around TW Hydra, a nearby young star, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Based on the distance from the central star and the ... read more

Asteroid Named After Professor

Sep. 13, 2016 — A professor has had his name written among the stars, after an asteroid was named after ... read more

Mars Rover Views Spectacular Layered Rock Formations

Sep. 12, 2016 — The layered geologic past of Mars is revealed in stunning detail in new color images returned by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently exploring the "Murray Buttes" region of ... read more

NASA's THEMIS Sees Auroras Move to the Rhythm of Earth's Magnetic Field

Sep. 12, 2016 — For the first time, scientists have directly mapped Earth's fluctuating magnetic field and resulting electrical currents to aurora, thanks to northern lights observations from NASA's THEMIS ... read more

Scientists Discover What Extraordinary Compounds May Be Hidden Inside Uranus and Neptune

Sep. 6, 2016 — Scientists have discovered that the depths of Uranus, Neptune and their satellites may contain extraordinary compounds, such as carbonic and orthocarbonic acids. It is no accident researchers have ... read more

Earth's Carbon Points to Planetary Smashup

Sep. 5, 2016 — Research suggests that virtually all of Earth's life-giving carbon could have come from a collision about 4.4 billion years ago between Earth and an embryonic planet similar to ... read more

NASA's SDO Witnesses a Double Eclipse

Sep. 2, 2016 — Early in the morning of Sept. 1, 2016, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, caught both Earth and the moon crossing in front of the sun. SDO keeps a constant eye on the sun, but during ... read more

Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System

Sep. 2, 2016 — NASA's Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter's north pole, taken during the spacecraft's first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. The images ... read more

Images from Sun's Edge Reveal Origins of Solar Wind

Sep. 1, 2016 — Ever since the 1950s discovery of the solar wind -- the constant flow of charged particles from the Sun -- there's been a stark disconnect between this outpouring and the sun itself. The details ... read more

Discovery One-Ups Tatooine, Finds Twin Stars Hosting Three Giant Exoplanets

Aug. 31, 2016 — Scientists have discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar 'twins' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets and the other ... read more

Anomalous Grooves on Martian Moon Phobos Explained by Impacts

Aug. 30, 2016 — Some of the mysterious grooves on the surface of Mars' moon Phobos are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface to form linear chains of craters, ... read more

Planet Nine Could Spell Doom for Solar System

Aug. 30, 2016 — The solar system could be thrown into disaster when the sun dies if the mysterious 'Planet Nine' exists, according to new ... read more

Hunt for Ninth Planet Reveals New Extremely Distant Solar System Objects

Aug. 29, 2016 — In the race to discover a proposed ninth planet in our Solar System, researchers have observed several never-before-seen objects at extreme distances from the Sun in our Solar ... read more

35 Years On, Voyager's Legacy Continues at Saturn

Aug. 24, 2016 — Saturn, with its alluring rings and numerous moons, has long fascinated stargazers and scientists. After an initial flyby of Pioneer 11 in 1979, humanity got a second, much closer look at this ... read more

Friday, September 16, 2016