News Briefs

Senior Space Community Professionals Address Strategy to Send Humans to Mars

A new study answers a longstanding mystery about why Mercury’s surface is darker than the Moon’s surface. This study implicates carbon as a “stealth” darkening agent.

bright explosions of Jupiter's aurora likely also get kicked off by the planet-moon interaction, not by solar activity.

A 400 kilometre-wide impact zone from a huge meteorite that broke in two moments before it slammed into the Earth has been found in Central Australia.

The sea ice cap of the Arctic appeared to reach its annual maximum winter extent on Feb. 25, according to new data.

Scientists have produced a new map of the Moon's most unusual volcano showing that its explosive eruption spread debris over an area much greater than previously thought.

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has observed an unexplained high-altitude dust cloud and aurora that reaches deep into the Martian atmosphere.

Researchers have discovered two seafloor troughs that could allow warm ocean water to reach the base of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica's largest and most rapidly thinning glacier.

New data provided by the Dawn spacecraft suggests that some of the olivine on Vesta was delivered by asteroid impacts rather than being the product of internal geologic activity.

A group of international scientists has created a colorful catalog containing reflection signatures of Earth life forms that might be found on exoplanets.

A software application based on an algorithm created by a NASA challenge has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers.

Located on the neck of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Hapi region displays a blueish reflectivity spectrum in OSIRIS color images.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its robotic arm Wednesday, March 11, to sieve and deliver a rock-powder sample to an onboard instrument.

The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples.

NASA's Opportunity rover has found blocky rocks unlike any previously examined on Mars. The rover team has delayed other activities to further investigate.