ESA and NASA space telescopes have revealed that, unlike Earth’s polar lights, the intense auroras seen at Jupiter’s poles unexpectedly behave independently of one another. Auroras have been seen in many places, from planets and moons to stars, brown…
When charged particles from a solar storm reached Mars this month, they set off an aurora 25 times brighter and surface level radiation readings twice as high as any previous measurements. An unexpectedly strong blast from the Sun hit Mars this month, observed by…
The Cassini probe's first results from inside Saturn's rings make scientists question the conventional wisdom on how planets form magnetic fields. As NASA's Cassini spacecraft makes its unprecedented series of weekly dives between Saturn and its rings,…
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft doesn't zoom past its next science target until New Year's Day 2019, but the Kuiper Belt object, known as 2014 MU69, is already revealing surprises. Scientists have been sifting through data gathered from observing the…
A new study from the University of Arizona suggests that an unknown, and currently unseen planetary body exists in the outer reaches of our solar system. The planet is located far beyond Pluto and has a mass somewhere between that of Mars and Earth. This object is…
Scientists working on NASA’s historic Juno mission to the gas giant Jupiter have recently presented their early findings for the first time. Like so many other recent space missions, what they have discovered is not what they expected. As reported by New…
Cassini mission scientists found evidence that Saturn's icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have tipped over in the distant past. Its spin axis, the line through the north and south poles, has reoriented, possibly due to a collision with a smaller body such as…
NASA’s Juno mission, led by Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Scott Bolton, is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about Jupiter specifically, and gas giants in general, according to a pair of Science papers released today. The Juno spacecraft…
Mars Express has captured images of one of the largest outflow channel networks on the Red Planet, providing evidence of ancient mega-flood on Mars, ESA announced today. The Kasei Valles channel system extends around 3 000 km (1 864 miles) from its source region in…
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has begun a second campaign of investigating active sand dunes on the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp, inside the 160 km (100 miles) wide Gale Crater. The rover also has been observing whirlwinds carrying dust and checking how far…
