Planets

Space

Quake-scouting lander safely touches down on Mars

NASA’s InSight lander has just arrived safely on the Martian surface. Its two year mission is to record any ‘Marsquakes’ and other signs of the planet’s geologic activity.

Planets

Prepping for drone exploration of Mars

Twelve-year-old James Fagan, a budding engineer from Riverside, Calif., has built a wind tunnel. He uses it to test scale models of drones and other vehicles under Mars-like conditions.

Space

Hubble may have spotted a possible ‘exomoon’

The apparent moon would be the size of Neptune and orbit a distant gas-giant planet known as Kepler 1625b.

Planets

Jupiter has 12 more moons than we knew about — and one is a weirdo

Astronomers found a dozen previously unknown moons of Jupiter. One may be a remnant of a larger moon that was all but ground to dust.

Planets

New Horizons data reveal first global maps of Pluto and Charon

Astronomers have made new charts of Pluto and its moon Charon. They show high peaks, deep depressions and strange ridges.

Planets

Finding living Martians just got a bit more believable

What might a real Martian look like? Scientists have a better idea after identifying a buried liquid lake on the Red Planet.

Planets

Mars appears to have a lake of liquid water

A 15-year-old Mars orbiter has spotted signs of a salty lake beneath the Red Planet’s southern polar ice sheets.

Planets

Thick atmosphere boosts how fast Venus spins

The thick atmosphere on Venus can change by a few minutes every day how long it takes the planet to rotate.

Planets

Pluto’s heart has dunes of methane ice

Pluto’s heart-shaped plains are striped with sand dunes. The sand is made of methane ice.

Chemistry

Diamonds and more suggest unusual origins for asteroids

Inside a meteorite, scientists found sulfur and iron wrapped in tiny diamonds. Those gems hint the rock formed inside a long-lost planet.

Planets

Uranus has stinky clouds

Hydrogen sulfide makes Uranus reek of rotten eggs.

Planets

Asteroids may have delivered water to early Earth

Scientists shot mineral pellets at a simulated planet. It showed an impact wouldn’t have boiled off all of an asteroid’s water.