NASA’s Curiosity rover has completed the drilling of the second rock sample on Mars and should deliver portions of the sample in coming days to laboratory instruments inside the rover. Pasadena, California – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect a powdered sample from the interior of a [...]

In a newly published study, researchers detail the atmospheric circulation patterns of Uranus and Neptune, finding that the streams of gas observed in the atmosphere are limited to a “weather layer” of no more than about 1000 km in depth. What is the long-range weather forecast for the giant planets Uranus and Neptune? These planets [...]

Using data from the Cassini spacecraft, researchers have created the first global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan. Scientists have created the first global topographic map of Saturn’s moon Titan, giving researchers a valuable tool for learning more about one of the most Earth-like and interesting worlds in the solar system. The map was just [...]

Scientists have chosen the second drilling site for the Curiosity rover on Mars. Pasadena, California — The team operating NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days. This second drilling target, called “Cumberland,” lies about nine feet [...]

Using a multicollector ion microprobe to study hydrogen-deuterium ratios in lunar rock and on Earth, a new study suggests that water on the Moon is leftover from when a giant collision sent a disc of debris from Earth to form the Moon, about 4.5 billion years ago. Providence, Rhode Island (Brown University) — Water inside [...]

Using infrared cameras equipped with spectrographs at the Palomar Observatory in California, Project 1640 was able to get precise composition information about four planets around one overwhelmingly bright star, HR 8799. The data revealed that all four planets, though nearly the same in temperature, have different compositions. Gone are the days of being able to [...]

Using a climate model adapted to the special conditions on Mars, researchers believe they can reliably predict snowstorms on Mars far in advance, helping future missions choose better routes that avoid heavy snowfall. Snowstorms lashing down at the northern hemisphere of Mars during the icy cold winters may be predicted several weeks in advance, say [...]

In a newly published study, scientists from Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology suggest that Mount Sharp most likely emerged as strong winds carried dust and sand into the 96-mile-wide crater in which the mound sits. A roughly 3.5-mile high Martian mound that scientists suspect preserves evidence of a massive lake might actually [...]

Using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists from the University of Iowa have discovered how the magnetosphere around Saturn changes with the planet’s seasons, providing an important clue for solving a riddle about the planet’s naturally occurring radio signal and helping scientists better understand variations in Earth’s magnetosphere and Van Allen radiation belts. A University [...]

ESA’s Mars Express has captured new images of a region on Mars known as Sulci Gordii, which lies about 200 km east of Olympus Mons. Giant landslides, lava flows and tectonic forces are behind this dynamic scene captured recently by ESA’s Mars Express of a region scarred by the Solar System’s largest volcano, Olympus Mons. [...]

In a new study, scientists from the University of Exeter and the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon reveal that Saturn’s youthful appearance is due to its inability to cool down, suggesting that the interior structure, composition and thermal evolution of giant planets may be more complex than the conventional approximation of giant planets as homogeneous [...]

Two new transiting, close-in, giant extrasolar planets KOI-200b and KOI-889b, have been detected and characterized with Kepler, SOPHIE and HARPS-N. An international team of astronomers, including Alexandre Santerne of the EXOEarths team at CAUP, has identified and characterized two new exoplanets thanks to combined observations from the Kepler space telescope plus the SOPHIE and HARPS-N [...]