Space
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx must avoid ‘Mount Doom’ to return a sample of the asteroid Bennu
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finally has a target spot for sample collection, called Nightingale, on the asteroid Bennu.
Planetary Science
More Stories in Planetary Science
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SpaceNASA’s Parker probe reveals the sun’s rogue plasma waves and magnetic islands
Scientists have analyzed the Parker probe’s first data, giving a peek at what’s to come as the craft moves closer to the sun over the next few years.
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Planetary ScienceRibose, a sugar needed for life, has been detected in meteorites
Samples of rocks that fell to Earth contain a key molecular ingredient of RNA, part of life’s genetic machinery.
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SpaceNASA gave Ultima Thule a new official name
The distant world briefly visited by New Horizons is now called Arrokoth, a Powhatan word that means “sky.”
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SpaceVoyager 2 reveals the dynamic, complex nature of the solar system’s edge
With two spacecraft outside the sun’s magnetic bubble, researchers get a new look at the boundary between the sun and its galactic environment.
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SpaceRules guarding other planets from contamination may be too strict
Voluntary international guidelines for visiting the moon, Mars and other places — and for bringing stuff back to Earth — are overly cautious, scientists say.
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SpaceThe solar system may have a new smallest dwarf planet: Hygiea
New images reveal Hygiea is round, a final criterion for promoting the wee world from asteroid to dwarf planet status.
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Planetary ScienceAstronomers have spotted a new type of storm on Saturn
In 2018, telescopes on Earth and in space identified a never-before-seen kind of storm activity on the ringed planet.
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SpaceHow the second known interstellar visitor makes ‘Oumuamua seem even odder
With its gaseous halo and tail, the second discovered interstellar object, 2I/Borisov, looks basically like your run-of-the-mill solar system comet.
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SpaceWhy just being in the habitable zone doesn’t make exoplanets livable
A reignited debate over whether a new planet is habitable highlights the difficult science of seeking alien life.