Planetary Science

  1. Planetary Science

    Cavernous findings from Mars

    Images taken by a Mars-orbiting spacecraft show what appear to be caves on the Red Planet.

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  2. Planetary Science

    No Escape: There’s global warming on Mars too

    The overall darkening of Mars' surface in recent decades has significantly raised the Red Planet's temperature, a possible cause for the substantial, recent shrinkage of the planet's southern ice cap.

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  3. Planetary Science

    Radar probes frozen water at Martian pole

    If all the frozen water stored near the south pole of Mars suddenly melted, it would make a planetwide ocean 11 meters deep.

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  4. Planetary Science

    Solar-staring spacecraft shows its flare

    A new image of the sun's chromosphere, a layer sandwiched between the sun's visible surface and its outer atmosphere, shows a surprisingly complex structure of filaments of roiling gas that promises to shed new light on why the sun erupts.

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  5. Planetary Science

    Radar reveals signs of seas on Titan

    The northernmost reaches of Saturn's moon Titan appear to be covered with hydrocarbon lakes or seas that are at least 10 times as large as those predicted by earlier studies.

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  6. Planetary Science

    Saturn’s rings: A panoramic perspective

    Sailing high above Saturn's equator, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took the most sweeping views of the planet's icy rings ever recorded.

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  7. Planetary Science

    A crack at life

    New images of ancient cracks on Mars suggest that liquid may have percolated through underground rock on the Red Planet, providing a possible habitat for primitive life.

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  8. Planetary Science

    Stormy Weather in Space: Craft take panoramic view of solar eruptions

    Twin spacecraft have for the first time tracked solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections, from their birth in the lower depths of the sun's atmosphere all the way to Earth's orbit.

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  9. Planetary Science

    Solar craft reaches a new low

    The Ulysses spacecraft passed directly below the sun on Feb. 7, looking up at its south pole, a feat the craft has done only twice before.

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  10. Planetary Science

    Titan’s organic cloud

    The Cassini spacecraft has imaged a huge cloud that engulfs most of the north pole of Saturn's icy moon Titan and could be a source of the moon's hydrocarbon lakes.

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  11. Planetary Science

    Solar craft get into position

    With the assist of gravitational boosts from the moon, twin spacecraft have completed a series of maneuvers that will enable them to take three-dimensional images of the sun.

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  12. Planetary Science

    Stellar death may spawn solar system

    Material shed by a dying star might give birth to planets.

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