planetary science Archives

Earth’s Oxygen Evolution Unraveled: Key Insights for Assessing Life on Other Planets

The drawing on the left depicts Enceladus and its ice-covered ocean, with cracks near the south pole that are believed to penetrate through the icy crust. The middle panel shows where authors believe life could thrive: at the top of the water, in a proposed thin layer (shown yellow) like on Earth’s oceans. The right panel shows that as gas bubbles rise and pop, bacterial cells could get lofted into space with droplets that then become the ice grains that were detected by Cassini.

New Study Reveals Potential for Detecting Life on Icy Moons of Saturn and Jupiter

MIT geologists determined the original orientation of many of the bedrock samples collected on Mars by the Perseverance rover, depicted in this image rendering. The findings can give scientists clues to the conditions in which the rocks originally formed. Credits:Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Study determines the original orientations of rocks drilled on Mars

Artistic conception of a recently exposed methane ice region on Eris’s surface. Credits: Angela Ramirez & Megan Hernandez (FSI/UCF).

Researchers Help Find Evidence of Geothermal Activity within Icy Dwarf Planets

Can astronomers use radar to spot a cataclysmic asteroid?

Voyager 2/ISS images of Uranus and Neptune released shortly after the Voyager 2 flybys in 1986 and 1989, respectively, compared with a reprocessing of the individual filter images in this study to determine the best estimate of the true colours of these planets.

New images reveal what Neptune and Uranus really look like

Is oxygen the cosmic key to alien technology?

$Dramatic plumes spray water ice and vapor from many locations along the famed "tiger stripes" near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The tiger stripes are four prominent, approximately 84-mile- (135-kilometer-) long fractures that cross the moon's south polar terrain. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute$