Space Exploration

Ever since NASA’s Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter in 1979, planetary researchers have wondered about the origin of Jovian lightning. That encounter confirmed the existence of the lightning, which had been theorized for years. But when the venerable explorer hurtled by, the data showed that the lightning-associated radio signals didn’t …

NASA’s Juno probe has been studying Jupiter for almost two years, but the mission has not gone exactly to plan. It’s taking Juno longer than NASA expected to map the gas giant, and operations were scheduled to cease this summer. Luckily, NASA has secured an additional $1 billion in funding …

A bit more than two years ago, a pair of astronomers made waves when they suggested that the orbits of a group of trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNOs, might be evidence for the existence of an undiscovered planet in our own solar system. This hypothesized world, dubbed Planet 9, would be …

A 6-foot (2 m) wide asteroid called 2018 LA disintegrated harmlessly over Botswana, Africa, just hours after its discovery on Saturday morning (June 2, 2018). Artist’s concept of a near-Earth asteroid. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. 2018 LA was first discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, located near Tucson …

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is maneuvering to its lowest-ever orbit for a close-up examination of the dwarf planet Ceres. This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. In early June, Dawn will reach its lowest-ever and final orbit above Ceres. Soon after, the spacecraft …

Neutron stars are the smallest, densest stars known to exist. But their small size, and the fact that they often don’t emit light in the visible spectrum, can make them difficult to see. The circumstances under which we can see neutron stars are rather complex — we know of about …

Until last year, the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) was making do with some fairly ancient weather satellites. The 1990s era hardware wasn’t up to the task of gathering the data scientists want, but the agency deployed the first of its new generation GOES-R satellites in 2016. Earlier this …

Wind-blown dunes are known on Earth, Mars, Venus, Saturn’s moon Titan, and Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — and, now on Pluto, according to a team of planetary researchers led by a University of Plymouth scientist. This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a …

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to stand on an alien planet, NASA has you covered. The agency’s “Exoplanet Travel Bureau” has launched a site where you can experience several potentially habitable exoplanets in a full 360-degree view. If you’ve got a VR viewer for your phone, you can …

It has been almost two years since NASA’s New Horizons probe made its historic flyby of Pluto, but we’re still learning new things about the dwarf planet from this mission’s data. Scientists were initially surprised to see the complex geology of Pluto, with ice mountains and vast frozen plains. It …