Planetary Science

Planetary Science

Tiny scope spies distant planet

Using a telescope not much bigger than Galileo's, astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a star 500 light-years from Earth.

Planetary Science

Exploring Mars

Here’s your chance to help NASA explore the surface of Mars. At its Marsoweb site, the agency provides detailed maps, engineering data, and interactive tools for studying the Red Planet’s alien terrain. Visitors are invited to look for and report important geologic features that haven’t yet been catalogued or even viewed by researchers. Go to: […]

Planetary Science

A really cool map

A new infrared image of Saturn's rings provides the most detailed temperature map ever taken of these icy particles.

Planetary Science

Martian ice could be sculpting surface patterns

Images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor suggest that most areas with geological features known as patterned ground appear at high latitudes.

Planetary Science

Saturn Watch: Cassini finds two new moons and lightning

The Cassini spacecraft has detected two moons that may be the smallest ever found around Saturn as well as changes in the character of lightning first detected in Saturn's atmosphere in the early 1980s.

Planetary Science

Finding a lunar meteorite’s home

Scientists have for the first time pinpointed the source of a meteorite that came from the moon.

Planetary Science

The sound of rings

When Cassini reached Saturn on June 30, it twice dashed through a gap in the planet's rings, and onboard science instruments recorded a flurry of ring dust harmlessly striking the spacecraft.

Planetary Science

Meteorites quickly reach Earth

Fragments from collisions between large bodies in the asteroid belt can reach Earth in as little as 100,000 years.

Planetary Science

A little bit of Mars on Earth

Scouring an ice field in Antarctica, scientists have made the latest discovery of a chunk of rock that was blasted from Mars and fell to Earth.

Planetary Science

Titanic Images, Groovy Shots: Cassini arrives at Saturn

After a 7-year, 3.5-billion-mile journey, the Cassini spacecraft last week slipped through a gap between two of the icy rings circling Saturn and became the first spacecraft to orbit the distant planet.

Planetary Science

Cometary encounter

Planetary scientists are feasting on close-up images of Comet Wild 2 as well as on the first information about its composition.

Planetary Science

NASA postpones plans for Mars samples

Still reeling from the failure of its two most recent missions to Mars, NASA announced late last month that it would delay by nearly a decade plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.