In the early days of the Curiosity mission on Mars, scientists were excited by what they found in what was once a mud-flat they called Yellowknife Bay. After months of drilling and testing, the mission team concluded that the site once had the roughly neutral water, an array of chemicals that could support metabolism and …
New Research Finds The Very Early Solar System Went Through an Especially Intense Period of Asteroid Collisions
In the earliest days of our solar system -- before any planets had been cobbled together -- the recently formed Sun was circled by cosmic gas and dust. Over time, fragments of rock formed from the dust and many of these orbiting rocks smashed together and some became the gradually larger components of planets-to-be. Others …
Evolving Views of Our Heliosphere Home
We can't see the heliosphere. We know where it starts but not really where it ends. And we are pretty certain that most stars, and therefore most planetary systems, are bounded by heliospheres, or "astropheres," as well. It has a measurable physical presence, but it is always changing. And although it is hardly well known, …
NASA’s Perseverance Rover on Mars; an Update
NASA's Perseverance rover has been on Mars for fifteen months now and is about to begin its trek into the fossil delta of Jezero Crater. It's a big deal for the mission, because the delta is where water once flowed long enough and strongly enough to smooth, round and move large rocks. Since proof …
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A Clue Into The Makeup of Jupiter’s Moon Europa Provided by the Greenland Ice Sheet
Europa's ice crust is crossed by thousands of double ridges, pairs of long parallel raised lines with a small valleys in between, sometimes as much as hundreds of miles long and skyscraper-height tall rims. While these double ridges are ubiquitous on Europa's surface, how they form remains something of a mystery to scientists. Dustin Schroeder, …
“Nature Has Become More Beautiful.” Physicist Eugene Parker and his Life Unlocking Secrets Of The Sun
When Eugene Parker was 16 years old, he decided he didn't want to spend the summer hanging out in suburban Detroit. So Parker went up to the state capital looking to buy some tax delinquent land held by the state. He selected a 40-acre piece of woods in far-off Cheboygan County, not far from …
The World’s Most Capable Space Telescope Readies To Observe. What Will Exoplanet Scientists Be Looking For?
The decades-long process of developing, refining, testing, launching, unfurling and now aligning and calibrating the most capable space telescope in history is nearing fruition. While NASA has already released a number of "first light" images of photons of light moving through the James Webb Space Telescope's optical system, the jaw-dropping "first light" that has all …
The European Space Agency Cuts Ties to Russia On Its ExoMars Mission. But U.S-Russian Cooperation Continues on the ISS
The European Space Agency has decided that is currently impossible to continue any ongoing cooperation with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and is moving forward with a "fast-track industrial study" to define how the mission can proceed without the Russians on its ambitious ExoMars astrobiology mission. In a release, ESA said that "as an intergovernmental …
Will The ISS Fall Victim to Russia’s Ukraine Invasion and Resulting Sanctions? Can The ExoMars Project Survive?
The United States and Russia have cooperated extensively and well in building and operating the International Space Station since the plan was formalized in 1993. The European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency have played major roles since the beginning, but it was first and foremost a U.S.-Russian venture. …
Venus, as Never Seen Before
For the first time, the surface of Venus has been imaged in visible wavelengths from space. The camera on the Parker Solar Probe pierced through the thick Venusian cloud cover and captured blurred but extremely valuable images of the highlands and lowlands of the planet. The breakthrough images came thanks to a spacecraft with an …
Many Worlds 