A water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles – nearly the distance from Los Angeles, California to Buenos Aires, Argentina – has been detected by researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Scientists used ground-based telescopes to get unprecedented views, thanks to the giant planet’s position in its long orbit around the Sun.
This just in: NASA’s new Daily Minor Planet project seeks your help discovering and tracking asteroids—in a dazzling new data set. Remember asteroids, those lumps of rock tumbling through space left over from the formation of our solar system? There are so many reasons to find these objects. Some... Read More
The gas giant orbiter has flown over 510 million miles and also documented close encounters with three of Jupiter’s four largest moons.
Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapor – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, indicating that water ice from the primordial solar system can be preserved in that region.
Evidence left in rocks is leading scientists to rethink what watery environments looked like on ancient Mars.
The work is based on new modeling and explores how oceans could exist in unlikely places in our solar system.
One of six instruments aboard the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, CRISM produced global maps of minerals on the Red Planet’s surface.
The history-making rotorcraft has recently been negotiating some of the most hazardous terrain it’s encountered on the Red Planet.
The update brings loads of improvements, the most significant being new driving capabilities.
When a scientist found herself inside a cave beneath the Mauna Loa volcano, she felt like she had entered another world. She may as well have been on Mars, and that's precisely why she had come.
Following in the footsteps of the Neptune image released in 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken a stunning image of the solar system’s other ice giant, the planet Uranus. The new image features dramatic rings as well as bright features in the planet’s atmosphere.
What are some skywatching highlights in April 2023? Mercury reaches its highest in the evening sky for the year for Northern Hemisphere observers. The Moon makes its monthly rounds to pair up beautifully with several planets. And viewing conditions may be ideal for the annual Lyrid meteor shower,... Read More
Saturn's vast ring system is heating the giant planet's upper atmosphere. The phenomenon has never before been seen in the solar system.