Planetary Environments & Atmospheres

News & Articles

Seven people, with large backpacks, hiking down a hill of lumpy snow dusted with beige volcanic ash. Behind them is a steep wall of dirt with streaks of fresh green shrubbery. The people appear tiny against the landscape and are all in the left half of the image. On the right are overlapping views of three distinct geological formations: a light-colored slope in the foreground, a tan and orange river gorge in the middle ground, and snow-capped mountains in the background, under a partly cloudy sky.

Into The Field With NASA: Valley Of Ten Thousand Smokes

4 min read

To better understand Mars, NASA's Goddard Instrument Field Team hiked deep into the backcountry of Katmai National Park.

Article3 months ago

Why Scientists Are Intrigued by Air in NASA’s Mars Sample Tubes

5 min read

Tucked away with each rock and soil sample collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover is a potential boon for atmospheric…

Article5 months ago
A side-by-side image showing both faces of Jupiter on the black background of space. At the top, left corner of the left-hand image is the label Jupiter. Centered at the bottom is the label "January 5, 2024." Jupiter is banded in stripes of brownish orange, light gray, soft yellow, and shades of cream, punctuated with many large storms and small white clouds. The largest storm, the Great Red Spot, is the most prominent feature in the left bottom third of this view. To its lower right is a smaller reddish anticyclone, Red Spot Jr. On the right-hand image, centered at the bottom is the label "January 6, 2024." This opposite side of Jupiter is also banded in stripes of brownish orange, light gray, soft yellow, and shades of cream, with many large storms and small white clouds punctuating the planet. At upper right of center, a pair of storms appear next to each other: a deep-red, triangle-shaped cyclone and a reddish anticyclone. Toward the far-left edge of this view is Jupiter's tiny orange-colored moon Io.

Hubble Tracks Jupiter’s Stormy Weather

3 min read

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images,…

Article8 months ago
Jupiter's moon Europa with an illustration of the Europa Clipper spacecraft in front of it.

Europa Clipper ICONS Internships

2 min read

Europa ICONS The new Inspiring Clipper: Opportunities for Next-generation Scientists (ICONS) internships will bring members of the Europa Clipper mission…

Topic

Venus Atmosphere and Cloud Particle Sample Return for Astrobiology

2 min read

Sara Seager MIT We propose to study a Venus sample return mission focused on the atmosphere—both the gas component and…

Article3 years ago

Where Rocks Come Alive: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Observes an Asteroid in Action

7 min read

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere – and while here on Earth, “happy hour” is commonly associated with winding down and the…

Article4 years ago
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What Is the Solar Wind?

An animation shows the Sun in the bottom left corner. Cascading off the Sun are lines in every direction, representing solar wind streams. As they move away, kinks form in the lines, and grow wider as they move outward.