Planetary Science

Planetary Science

Titanic Close-up: Cassini eyes Saturn’s big moon

Using radar to penetrate the thick haze surrounding Saturn's moon Titan, the Cassini spacecraft has found evidence that the moon's surface is coated with hydrocarbons and dark patches that might be lakes of ethane or methane.

Planetary Science

Mars Views Hint at Early Land of Lakes

New, high-resolution images unveiled this week not only offer supporting evidence that parts of ancient Mars resembled a land of lakes but also point out prime locations to look for fossils if life ever existed on the Red Planet.

Planetary Science

An early cosmic wallop for life on Earth?

New evidence from lunar meteorites suggests that debris bombarded the moon some 3.9 billion years ago, about the same time that life may have formed on Earth.

Planetary Science

Mars Rovers: New evidence of past water

Twin rovers on opposite sides of the Red Planet have found additional evidence that liquid water once flowed there.

Planetary Science

Martian water everywhere

Combining data taken from two craft orbiting Mars with images and spectra collected by one of the Mars rovers, a scientist has found evidence that a body of water greater in area than all the Great Lakes combined once covered the Red Planet.

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.