Planets
- Space
Scientists Say: Accretion Disk
Cosmic swirls of gas, dust and plasma, accretion disks reveal the shadowy silhouettes of black holes and more.
- Planets
Planets like Star Wars’ Tatooine could be fit for life
Like Luke Skywalker’s home, planets orbiting two stars may be plentiful. A new computer model suggests that many of those worlds could sustain life.
- Planets
Saturn’s moon Enceladus wears a thick blanket of snow
Pits on the frosty moon reveal the snow’s surprising depth, up to 700 meters (2,300 feet) in some places.
- Planets
The dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring
Quaoar’s ring lies outside the Roche limit. That’s an imaginary line beyond which rings aren’t thought to be stable.
- Planets
Mars might still be volcanically active, quakes there suggest
Seismic rumblings picked up by NASA’s InSight lander hint at molten rock moving deep below the planet’s fractured surface.
- Planets
Check out the first direct look at Neptune’s rings since the ’80s
The Voyager 2 spacecraft took the first pics of Neptune’s rings 33 years ago. Now, NASA’s James Webb telescope is providing a more detailed view of them.
- Space
A missing moon could have given Saturn its rings — and tilt
The hypothetical moon is being called Chrysalis. It could have helped tip the planet over before getting shredded to form Saturn’s rings.
- Space
My 10 years on Mars: NASA’s Curiosity rover describes its adventure
Did life evolve on Mars? NASA’s Curiosity rover spent the last 10 years trying to answer that question. Here’s the story from the rover’s point of view.
- Earth
Earth’s rock collection hints at how to search for life elsewhere
A new way to sort minerals focuses on how they formed. It provides new clues about Earth’s crystal past and how to find life on other planets.
- Planets
Scientists Say: Habitable Zone
The habitable zone is the region around a star where temperatures could be right for worlds to host liquid water.
- Space
Let’s learn about surviving a trip to Mars
Getting to and surviving on the Red Planet will take lots of innovation.
- Planets
Noises sound totally different on Mars than on Earth. Here’s why
The Perseverance rover recorded the sound of laser pulses on Mars. Scientists used those recordings to determine the Martian speeds of sound.
