Planetary Science

  1. 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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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. Planetary Science

    Stellar death may spawn solar system

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

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  5. Planetary Science

    From the January 2, 1937, issue

    The beauty of snow, a very large number, and a robot brain machine.

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  6. Planetary Science

    The Big Picture: Cassini spies Titan’s tall mountains

    A spacecraft has discovered the largest mountains known on Titan, Saturn's smog-shrouded moon.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Craft reveals Martian site of ancient water

    The distribution of materials in this composite image of the Nili Fossae region of Mars tells scientists that water resided there no more recently than nearly 4 billion years ago. Green indicates clay minerals that formed in a wet environment. Red depicts the mineral olivine, which formed about 3.8 billion years ago, according to the […]

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  8. Planetary Science

    Signs of recent water on Mars

    Pictures showing fresh deposits of bright material on two Martian gullies provide the most compelling evidence yet that water flowed on parts of the Red Planet during the last few years.

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  9. Planetary Science

    So long, Surveyor

    After 8 years of relaying pictures, topographic maps, magnetic field data, and compositional information from above the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft appears to have called it quits.

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  10. Planetary Science

    Howdy, Neighbors: Long-term study finds a batch of red dwarfs

    Astronomers have found 20 previously unknown star systems that lie within 33 light-years of Earth.

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  11. Planetary Science

    Jovian storm grows stormier

    Jupiter's Little Red Spot has become as strong as its big brother.

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  12. Planetary Science

    Satanic Winds

    Dust devils send prodigious amounts of dust into Earth's atmosphere, and on Mars the electric fields generated by the dusty vortices may actually stimulate changes in atmospheric chemistry that sterilize the soil.

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