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Planets

An illustration of what it might have looked like just before the InSight lander touched down on Mars. Pictured: a saucer shaped lander with three legs close the the Martian surface

This is an artist’s view of what it might have looked like when the InSight was about to touch down on Mars. The craft successfully landed November 26 on the Red Planet.

JPL-CALTECH/NASA

Space
 
Nov 28, 2018
Quake-scouting lander safely touches down on Mars
an illustration of a dark exomoon orbiting a bright Jupiter-sized planet

The Hubble Space Telescope may have spotted a Neptune-sized moon orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet, as shown in this illustration.

Dan Durda

Space
 
Oct 17, 2018
Hubble may have spotted a possible ‘exomoon’
an image of Jupiter showing the orbits of the 12 newly discovered moons around the planet

Of 12 newly discovered moons of Jupiter (illustrated in bold, orange, blue and green), one orbits in the opposite direction of its neighbors (arrows show orbit direction). Four moons discovered by the spacecraft Galileo are also shown (purple).

Roberto Molar Candanosa/Carnegie Institution for Science

Planets
 
Aug 20, 2018
Jupiter has 12 more moons than we knew about — and one is a weirdo
an image of the highest mountains on Pluto

New maps of Pluto show details of the dwarf planet’s mountains. Shown here are the highest mountains. The rise 3 to 6 kilometers (1.9 to 3.7 miles) above the smooth plains called Sputnik Planitia. The plains are made of nitrogen-ice.

Paul Schenk/Lunar and Planetary Institute

Planets
 
Aug 10, 2018
New Horizons data reveal first global maps of Pluto and Charon
an image of Mars' south pole

Scientists found what they think is a lake hidden under ice (white) near Mars’ south pole, seen in this image from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft.

ESA, DLR, FU BERLIN (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

Planets
 
Jul 31, 2018
Finding living Martians just got a bit more believable
an image of Mars' souther polar ice sheets from orbit

There may be a 20-kilometer-wide lake hidden under Mars’ southern polar ice sheets. Those ice sheet are shown here in images from a camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Mars Orbiter Camera data/NASA

Planets
 
Jul 26, 2018
Mars appears to have a lake of liquid water
Venus atmosphere

With help from its thick atmosphere, the speed at which Venus spins changes. This planet close-up was taken by the Japanese space agency’s Akatsuki spacecraft.

Damia Bouic, DARTS, ISAS, JAXA

Planets
 
Jul 23, 2018
Thick atmosphere boosts how fast Venus spins
053118_lg_pluto-dunes_feat_free.jpg

Pluto’s dunes (center bottom and right) appear along a mountain range in this New Horizons image. The “sand” is made of methane ice.

SWRI, JHU APPLIED PHYSICS LAB, NASA

Planets
 
Jul 5, 2018
Pluto’s heart has dunes of methane ice
a simulated image of an asteroid floating in space

Inside a space rock, scientists found unusual diamonds. They hint that rock formed inside a long-lost planet.

dottedhippo/istockphoto

Astronomy
 
Jun 19, 2018
Diamonds and more suggest unusual origins for asteroids
Uranus image

Uranus has a beautiful blue hue. It’s shown in this 1986 image taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. But new measurements suggest something yucky about the planet. Its atmosphere smells like rotten eggs.

JPL/NASA

Planets
 
Jun 8, 2018
Uranus has stinky clouds