Topic: Planetary Science

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Five places we might find life in our own solar system

Life on Earth occupies some bizarre places – pools of pitch, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and lightless lakes buried under glaciers. While scientists hunt for hospitable planets circling other stars, the solar system has a few candidates. Here are five.
What makes a planet livable? Five things scientists look for.

Scientists have so far detected at least 550 planets outside the solar system – and another 2,000-plus await confirmation. But how to pick out the ones that may be Earth-like havens for life? Here's what one team looks for in assessing any planet's potential habitability and its similarity to Earth's properties.
David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books

The late great novelist David Foster Wallace's 10 favorite books.
Quadrantid meteors and 11 other big skywatching events of 2012

What lies ahead sky-wise for 2012? Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist, selected what he considers to be the top 12 "skylights" for this coming year,
In Pictures: Timeline of American rockets

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Venus to have its final day in the sun for the 21st century

The planet Venus is due to pass in front of the sun on June 5th and 6th. It won't do so again until 2117.
Mars Opportunity rover sees its own shadow in crater

Opportunity just started moving again two weeks ago, after spending more than four months at a site along Endeavour's rim called Greeley Haven. The rover sat out the harsh Martian winter at the site, whose tilt allowed Opportunity to angle its solar panels toward the low-hanging sun.
NASA mission confirms: Ex-asteroid Vesta is a planet that almost was

Data from the orbiter DAWN confirm theories about the history of Vesta, which dates to the early days of planet formation. The protoplanet is also home to the solar system's second largest mountain.
Asteroid Vesta: Is it really an asteroid?

The humongous asteroid Vesta is actually a protoplanet left over from the early days of our solar system, new observations from a NASA space probe suggest.
Planetary wrecking balls: how Jupiter might have destroyed Earth

'Hot Jupiters' are Jupiter-mass planets orbiting close to stars. A study suggests that they might have been kicked inward from their original orbit, destroying or ejecting other planets.
European Space Agency to explore Jupiter's moons (+video)

The ESA has given the go-ahead for a solar-powered space probe that will examine the icy Jovian moons of Ganymede and Europa, along with Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
Death Valley used as stand-in for Martian landscape (+video)

A project scientist for NASA's huge Curiosity rover is leading a handful of journalists on a trip to Death Valley, whose geology and vistas resemble Mars in some places. The goal is to help reporters get a better idea of the science Curiosity will be doing when it touches down on the Red Planet on the night of Aug. 5.
Mars lava unlocks the red planet's secrets (+video)

The first lava ever seen in an extraterrestrial environment was spotted recently by scientists. It indicates that Mars was shaped by volcanic activity.
NASA's Kepler observatory to continue hunt for strange new worlds (+video)

Funding for the Kepler mission, which has discovered more than 2,300 potential alien planets to date, was slated to run out this November.
Planets found at dawn of universe, but their existence is a mystery

Scientists have found two planets orbiting a star that formed only a billion years after the big bang. But the universe had few planet-making elements then, so how did the planets form?
Astronomers say that there are billions of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy (+video)

A team of European astronomers say that about 40 percent of red dwarf stars - the most common type of star in the Milky Way - have at least one planet whose temperatures would allow liquid water on the surface.
Study indicates existence of billions of habitable alien planets in Milky Way (+video)

A survey of red dwarf stars suggests that, in our galaxy alone, there are tens of billions of planets orbiting their stars' 'habitable zones.'
Planets hurtling near the speed of light? It's possible, study says.

Scientists want to know if planets can form near the supermassive black hole at the core of the galaxy. If so, the black hole could fling them out into space at enormous speeds that, from our vantage point, could appear to approach the speed of light.
Mercury: Unusual insides and active history

New information collected by NASA's Messenger shows that Mercury was more geologically active than scientists previously thought.
Strange features on Mercury upend thinking about 'first rock from sun'

New results from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft show Mercury to have features unlike anything scientists have seen elsewhere in the solar system. Here's one: a huge core for a planet this size.
Scientists explain pileups of gigantic alien worlds

Researchers say they have apparently discovered the secret behind the mysterious clumping of massive alien worlds: high-energy radiation from their stars.
Stars create gaps devoid of gas giants, study finds

Computer simulations of young solar systems suggest that gas giants seem to avoid certain orbital regions around stars, a phenomenon caused by intense radiation emanating from young stars.
Thin layer of oxygen found on Dione may change search for alien life

After the Cassini probe's flyby over Saturn's frozen moon, Dione, scientists saw evidence of ionized oxygen molecules in its atmosphere. This could have interesting implications for astrobiology.
How reflections on the moon could aid search for aliens

By studying "earthshine" – the reflection of the Earth on the Moon – scientists may have found a technique they can use to look for life elsewhere.
Five places we might find life in our own solar system

Life on Earth occupies some bizarre places – pools of pitch, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and lightless lakes buried under glaciers. While scientists hunt for hospitable planets circling other stars, the solar system has a few candidates. Here are five.
Moon acts as mirror, reflecting telltale signs of life (+video)

So-called 'earthshine' observations may pave the way for a similar tool to help spot signs of alien life in the universe, scientists say.
Could free-floating 'nomad' planets carry seeds of life in the universe?

A 'nomad' planet of the right mass, with the right atmosphere, and some source of heat – perhaps radioactive decay or tectonic activity – could allow for life either on the surface or underground.
Marsquake? How rumblings could bolster hope for life on Mars.

If seismic activity on Mars is recent, and it can be traced to a volcano, it could mean that there is a source of heat to melt ice and provide potential habitats for simple forms of life.
Hubble telescope spots new class of planet: a steamy 'waterworld'

The planet GJ 1214b is a watery planet covered in a thick, steamy atmosphere, a new study of Hubble data suggests.
Obama's NASA budget: Mars takes a hit, but space science isn't dead

Two major Mars missions lost out to the James Web Space Telescope in Obama's proposed NASA budget, but there's still money for other ambitious space-science missions.