Space Missions News

September 26, 2016

Water Plumes Erupting On Jupiter's Europa

'Impossible' Cloud Found On Titan -- Again

Earthquakes, ‘Mars-Quakes,’ and Life?

Some Ancient Mars Lakes Formed More Recently

Latest Headlines

updated 2:43pm EDT

Feeding a Mars Mission: The Challenges of Growing Plants in Space

Sep. 21, 2016 — Plants will play a critical role in the survival of human beings on long-duration space missions, such as a mission to Mars. However, as a new paper shows, many challenges need to be addressed if ... read more

Cassini Begins Epic Final Year at Saturn

Sep. 15, 2016 — After more than 12 years studying Saturn, its rings and moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage. The conclusion of the historic ... read more

Exploration Team Shoots for the Moon With Water-Propelled Satellite

Sep. 15, 2016 — Cislunar Explorers, a team of Cornell University students guided by Mason Peck, a former senior official at NASA and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace ... read more

Mars Rover Views Spectacular Layered Rock Formations

Sep. 12, 2016 — The layered geologic past of Mars is revealed in stunning detail in new color images returned by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently exploring the "Murray Buttes" ... read more

Moon Is Proto-Earth's Mantle, Relocated, Chemistry Suggests

Sep. 12, 2016 — The leading theory for the moon's formation got in trouble recently when it was revealed that the moon and Earth are isotopic twins. Now highly precise measurements of the ... read more

Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System

Sep. 2, 2016 — NASA's Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter's north pole, taken during the spacecraft's first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. ... read more

Anomalous Grooves on Martian Moon Phobos Explained by Impacts

Aug. 30, 2016 — Some of the mysterious grooves on the surface of Mars' moon Phobos are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface to form linear chains ... read more

35 Years On, Voyager's Legacy Continues at Saturn

Aug. 24, 2016 — Saturn, with its alluring rings and numerous moons, has long fascinated stargazers and scientists. After an initial flyby of Pioneer 11 in 1979, humanity got a second, much ... read more

Test for Damp Ground at Mars' Seasonal Streaks Finds None

Aug. 23, 2016 — Seasonal dark streaks on Mars that have become one of the hottest topics in interplanetary research don't hold much water, according to the latest findings from a NASA ... read more

NASA Establishes Contact With STEREO Mission

Aug. 23, 2016 — NASA has reestablished contact with its STEREO-B spacecraft, after communications were lost on Oct. 1, 2014. Over 22 months, the STEREO team has worked to attempt contact ... read more

More Than a Billion Milky Way Stars Mapped: ESA

Rosetta Orbiter Will End Its Space Journey By Smashing Into A Comet

NASA Spacecraft Going to Asteroid

Spacecraft Launches to Collect Asteroid Samples

Fossilized Rivers Suggest Warm, Wet Ancient Mars

Aug. 23, 2016 — Extensive systems of fossilized riverbeds have been discovered on an ancient region of the Martian surface, supporting the idea that the now cold and dry Red Planet had a warm and wet climate about 4 ... read more

NASA Prepares to Launch First U.S. Asteroid Sample Return Mission

Aug. 17, 2016 — NASA is preparing to launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our ... read more

NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission Completes Design Milestone

Aug. 17, 2016 — Following a key program review, NASA approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to proceed to the next phase of design and development for the mission's robotic segment. ARM is a two-part ... read more

Venus May Have Been Habitable, NASA Climate Modeling Suggests

Aug. 11, 2016 — Venus may have had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to two billion years of its early history, according to NASA computer modeling of the planet's ancient ... read more

Mars Gullies Likely Not Formed by Liquid Water

Aug. 10, 2016 — New findings using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show that gullies on modern Mars are most likely not being formed by flowing liquid water. This new evidence will allow ... read more

Cassini Finds Flooded Canyons on Saturn's Moon Titan

Aug. 10, 2016 — NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The finding represents the first direct evidence of the ... read more

Evidence of Martian Life Could Be Hard to Find in Some Meteorite Blast Sites

Aug. 8, 2016 — Signs of life from under Mars’ surface may not survive in rocks excavated by some meteorite impacts, scientists suggest at the point of preliminary study ... read more

Most Volcanic Activity on Mercury Stopped About 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Aug. 5, 2016 — New research finds that major volcanic activity on the planet Mercury most likely ended about 3.5 billion years ago. These findings add insight into the geological evolution of Mercury in particular, ... read more

Veins on Mars Were Formed by Evaporating Ancient Lakes

Aug. 5, 2016 — Mineral veins found in Mars's Gale Crater were formed by the evaporation of ancient Martian lakes, a new study has ... read more

Apollo Astronauts Experiencing Higher Rates of Cardiovascular-Related Deaths

July 28, 2016 — Members of the successful Apollo space program are experiencing higher rates of cardiovascular problems that are thought to be caused by their exposure to deep space radiation, according to a new ... read more

Transformations to Granular Zircon Revealed: Meteor Crater, Arizona

July 27, 2016 — Having been reported in lunar samples returned by Apollo astronauts, meteorites, impact glass, and at a number of meteorite craters on Earth, granular zircon is the most unusual and enigmatic type of ... read more

Digging Deeper Into Mars

July 25, 2016 — Scientists continue to unravel the mystery of life on Mars by investigating evidence of water in the planet's soil. Previous observations of soil observed along crater slopes on Mars showed a ... read more

Mars Rover's Laser Can Now Target Rocks All by Itself

July 21, 2016 — New software is enabling ChemCam, the laser spectrometer on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, to select rock targets autonomously -- the first time autonomous target selection is available for an ... read more

Asteroid That Formed Moon's Imbrium Basin May Have Been Protoplanet-Sized

July 20, 2016 — The asteroid that slammed into the moon 3.8 billion years ago creating the Imbrium Basin may have had a diameter of at least 150 miles, according to a new estimate. The work helps explain puzzling ... read more

NASA's Kepler Confirms 100+ Exoplanets During Its K2 Mission

July 18, 2016 — Scientists report the largest haul of confirmed planets - tallying more than a hundred -- since NASA's Kepler space telescope switched from staring into one patch of sky to detecting planets ... read more

NASA Camera Catches Moon 'Photobombing' Earth

July 11, 2016 — For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the DSCOVR satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. From its position between the sun and ... read more

NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter

July 5, 2016 — After an almost five-year journey to the solar system's largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter's orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. With its suite of ... read more

A Giant Impact: Solving the Mystery of How Mars' Moons Formed

July 4, 2016 — Where did the two natural satellites of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, come from? For a long time, their shape suggested that they were asteroids captured by Mars. However, the shape and course of their ... read more

Jupiter on a Bench: Spacecraft Juno Nears Planet Orbit

June 30, 2016 — Earlier this year, in an experiment about five-feet long, researchers say they observed evidence of the abrupt transition of hydrogen from liquid insulator to liquid metal. It is one of the first ... read more

A Bewildering Form of Sand Dune Discovered on Mars

June 30, 2016 — Some of the wind-sculpted sand ripples on Mars are a type not seen on Earth, and their relationship to the thin Martian atmosphere provides new clues about the atmosphere's ... read more

Tuesday, August 23, 2016