Water Once Flowed Under Mars's Surface
Fossilized wrinkles in impact craters suggest once again that water might once have flowed on Mars — this time, beneath the surface.
Floating Ice on Titan?
Astronomers had thought that ice on the Saturnian moon's methane-ethane seas would sink. But a new study suggests that, if the right conditions are met, ice could actually float on this alien-Earth world.
Asteroid Apophis Takes a Pass in 2036
The early results are in from a giant radar dish tracking asteroid 99942 Apophis, and it's good news for planet Earth: there's essentially no chance that this threatening object will hit us in 2036.
A Chunk of Martian Crust — on Earth!
The meteorite known as NWA 7034 is a 2-billion-year-old sample of the Red Planet's crust, with unique geochemical properties and far higher water content than that of any other Martian meteorite.
Sutter's Mill: A Meteoritic Gold Mine
When a brilliant daylight fireball broke apart over California on April 22nd, professional and amateur meteorite hunters sprang into action — and their effort to recover fragments quickly has been dramatically rewarded.
Toutatis Revealed by Chinese Spacecraft
Chang'e 2, a Chinese spacecraft that was orbiting the Moon 18 months ago, has wowed space-watchers around the world by returning detailed images of asteroid 4179 Toutatis taken during a close-in, high-speed flyby.
Big River on Titan
The Cassini spacecraft has spotted what could be the longest river system seen beyond Earth. The river looks like it's feeding into a sea on Saturn's moon Titan.
Gravity Probes "See" Deep Lunar Secrets
Just by circling the Moon every 2 hours while keeping hyper-accurate track of each other's motions, twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow have mapped the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail — and opened a window on the Moon's ancient, battered interior.
Van Allen Probes Peek at Radiation Belts
The twin Van Allen Probes have only been spaceborne for 60 days, but they’ve already returned heaps of data about the radiation belts, whose "killer electrons" endanger satellites.
Voyager's On-ramp to Interstellar Space
Now more than 11 billion miles from home, NASA's long-lived interplanetary probe is immersed in a flow of particles coming directly from beyond the heliosphere — an experience that mission scientists have hoped for since the 1970s.
Curiosity Gets a Whiff of Organic Matter
When NASA's newest rover cooked up its first samples of Martian soil, one instrument reported finding traces of organic molecules. But they're probably false alarms, say mission scientists.
Mercury's Polar Ice Defies the Odds
Today scientists confirmed a suspicion raised some 20 years ago: despite all logic to the contrary, the hellish planet Mercury is hiding substantial deposits of water ice in its polar regions.
Asteroid Pieces Make Pretty Meteorites
A new analysis of crystals in pallasite meteorites suggests that these beautiful objects had a violent birth — but one quite different than scientists had imagined.
Making the Moon Anew
One of the solar system's most nagging problems literally stares into the collective faces of planetary scientists on many nights every month. It's the Moon — or, specifically, how it came to exist.
Great Red Spot Shrinking
Observations by amateur astronomers confirm that Jupiter's gargantuan storm is still tightening its waistline.
Saturn’s Frankenstorm: The Aftermath
Though Saturn’s Great White Spot faded by the end of 2011, infrared telescopes have revealed the storm's long-lasting impact.
News From Across the Solar System
From new models of the Moon's formation to planets forming around distant stars, nearly 800 planetary scientists had plenty of new results to present this week when they met in Reno, Nevada.
Freshest Mars Rock has Hints of Water
An international team of scientists has teased apart the secrets hidden inside a meteorite from Mars, including signs that the rock weathered acidic water while on the Red Planet.
Big Meteoroid Boomerangs Around Earth
Late on September 21st, a bright fireball broke apart as it skimmed the atmosphere over northwestern Europe — then it became a temporary satellite, looping completely around the planet before its searing finale over eastern North America.
Curiosity Finds Ancient Streambed
NASA's newest rover has found strong evidence near its landing site inside Gale crater that vigorous steams of liquid water once flowed across the Martian surface.