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A montage of Hubble Space Telescope images of our solar system's four giant outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, taken under the OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) program over 10 years, from 2014 to 2024.

NASA’s Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

8 min read

Encountering Neptune in 1989, NASA’s Voyager mission completed humankind’s first close-up exploration of the four giant outer planets of our solar system. Collectively, since their launch in 1977, the twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft discovered that Jupiter, Saturn,…

Article3 days ago
As NASA's Juno spacecraft sped low over the giant planet's cloud tops, on Nov. 29, 2021, its JunoCam instrument captured this look at two of Jupiter's largest moons.

December’s Night Sky Notes: Spot the King of Planets

4 min read

by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Jupiter is our solar system’s undisputed king of the planets! Jupiter is bright and easy to spot from our vantage point on Earth, helped by its massive size and banded,…

Article2 weeks ago

NASA Ocean World Explorers Have to Swim Before They Can Fly

5 min read

In a competition swimming pool, engineers tested prototypes for a futuristic mission concept: a swarm of underwater robots that could look for signs of life on ocean worlds. When NASA’s Europa Clipper reaches its destination in 2030, the spacecraft will…

Article3 weeks ago
In the style of comic art, Europa clipper flies toward Europa, which appears as a quarter circle in close-up in the bottom left. A cutaway of the moon's surface reveals it's icy shell and an ocean beneath. Hydrothermal vents are visible. An altered image of Jupiter looms large in the background.

NASA’s New Edition of Graphic Novel Features Europa Clipper

2 min read

NASA has released a new edition of Issue 4 of the Astrobiology Graphic History series. The issue now includes NASA's Europa Clipper mission.

Article1 month ago

Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New Guided Tour of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon

3 min read

NASA Science Activation's Solar System Treks collaborated with Astrobiology SciComm Guild SMEs to create enhancements to the Europa Trek portal.

Article2 months ago

Journey to a Water World: NASA’s Europa Clipper Is Ready to Launch

5 min read

Find details about the launch sequences for the orbiter, which is targeting an Oct. 14 liftoff on its mission to search for ingredients of life at Jupiter’s moon Europa. In less than 24 hours, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is slated…

Article2 months ago

Can Life Exist on an Icy Moon? NASA’s Europa Clipper Aims to Find Out

6 min read

With a spacecraft launching soon, the mission will try to answer the question of whether there are ingredients suitable for life in the ocean below Europa’s icy crust. Deep down, in an ocean beneath its ice shell, Jupiter’s moon Europa…

Article2 months ago

Does Distant Planet Host Volcanic Moon Like Jupiter’s Io?

5 min read

The existence of a moon located outside our solar system has never been confirmed but a new NASA-led study may provide indirect evidence for one. New research done at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reveals potential signs of a rocky, volcanic…

Article2 months ago
Eight Hubble images showing Jupiter's Great Red Spot as it changes over time from December 2023 to March 2024.

NASA’s Hubble Watches Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball

4 min read

Astronomers have observed Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), an anticyclone large enough to swallow Earth, for at least 150 years. But there are always new surprises – especially when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope takes a close-up look at it.…

Article2 months ago
An illustration showing the trajectory of ESA’s Juice spacecraft during its lunar-Earth gravity assist, featuring a high-resolution ENA image of the million-degree hot plasma halo encircling Earth captured by NASA’s JENI instrument

NASA’s Instruments Capture Sharpest Image of Earth’s Radiation Belt

4 min read

From Aug. 19-20, ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission made history with a daring lunar-Earth flyby and double gravity assist maneuver, a spaceflight first. As the spacecraft zipped past our Moon and home planet, Juice’s instruments…

Article2 months ago