https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org Jupiter has some of the most conspicuous atmospheric features in our solar system. The planet's Great Red Spot, large enough to envelop Earth, is nearly as well known as some of the various rivers and mountains on the planet we call home. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-webb-feature-jupiter-atmosphere.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:13:04 EDT news616936382 A team of astronomers and astrophysicists from INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 5, Universidad Diego Portales, the University of Exeter and Sorbonne Université has found evidence that gas giants may be more common than thought in some parts of the galaxy. In their study, reported in the journal Nature Communications, the group analyzed the mass and movement of 30 stars in the Beta Pictoris Moving Group. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-gas-giants-common-thought-galaxy.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:50:01 EDT news616844198 A landmark discovery by a collaborative team led by the Planetary Science Institute's Alexis Rodriguez has unveiled evidence of sedimentary plains created by aquifer drainage within Martian collapse formations termed chaotic terrains. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-biosignatures-ancient-mars-mud-lake.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:29:03 EDT news616843741 A global team of scientists have announced the results of an unprecedented collaboration to search for the source of the largest ever seismic event recorded on Mars. The study, led by the University of Oxford, rules out a meteorite impact, suggesting instead that the quake was the result of enormous tectonic forces within Mars' crust. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-international-team-reveals-source-largest.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:01:03 EDT news616752061 The Space Age is leaving fingerprints on one of the most remote parts of the planet—the stratosphere—which has potential implications for climate, the ozone layer and the continued habitability of Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-signatures-space-age-spacecraft-metals.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:00:01 EDT news616679367 One of the most exciting findings from NASA's Dawn mission is that Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, hosts complex organics. The discovery of aliphatic molecules, which consist of carbon and hydrogen chains, in conjunction with evidence that Ceres has abundant water ice and may have been an ocean world, means this dwarf planet might have once harbored the main ingredients associated with life as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-hypervelocity-impact-probe-dwarf-planet.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 16 Oct 2023 12:07:46 EDT news616676863 Researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have detected evidence for quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of WASP-17 b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet 1,300 light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-webb-quartz-crystals-clouds-hot.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 16 Oct 2023 11:01:03 EDT news616672861 NASA's Psyche spacecraft rocketed away Friday on a six-year journey to a rare metal-covered asteroid. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-spacecraft-mysterious-rare-metal.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Fri, 13 Oct 2023 10:28:08 EDT news616411682 It's a world like no other: a metal-rich asteroid that could be the remnants of a small planet, or perhaps an entirely new type of celestial body unknown to science. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-journey-metal-rich-asteroid.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:53:44 EDT news616344819 It may be possible to create paved roads and landing pads on the moon by using lasers to melt lunar soil into a more solid, layered substance, reports a proof-of-concept study in Scientific Reports. Although these experiments were carried out on Earth using a substitute for lunar dust, these findings demonstrate the viability of the technique and suggest it could be replicated on the moon. However, further work may be needed to refine the process, according to the authors. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-small-lunar-roads-potentially-giant.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news616320072 If all goes well, on Thursday morning a NASA mission with extensive connections to MIT will be headed to a metal world. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-psyche-journey-ancient-asteroid.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Oct 2023 12:20:07 EDT news616245603 A sample collected from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu contains abundant water and carbon, NASA revealed on Wednesday, offering more evidence for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-asteroid-sample-life-critical-carbon.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Oct 2023 12:10:25 EDT news616245003 For decades, scientists have pondered the mystery of the moon's ancient magnetism. Based on analyses of lunar samples, its now-deceased magnetic field may have been active for more than 1.5 billion years—give or take a billion years. Scientists believe it was generated like the Earth's via a dynamo process, whereby the spinning and churning of conductive liquid metal within a rocky planet's core generates a magnetic field. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-magnetic-spacecraft-contamination-extraterrestrial-samples.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Oct 2023 11:59:56 EDT news616244389 For the first time, an international group of astronomers have seen the heat glow of two ice giant planets colliding, and the resultant dust cloud then move in front of the parent star several years later. The star ASASSN-21qj—named after the network of telescopes that first detected the fading of the star at visible wavelengths—was then studied intensively by a network of amateur and professional astronomers including Dr. Matthew Kenworthy at Leiden Observatory (the Netherlands), who monitored the changes in the star's brightness over the next two years. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-cloud-colliding-ice-planets-dims.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news616146907 NASA is set to reveal on Wednesday the first images of the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space, something scientists hope will yield clues about the earliest days of our solar system and perhaps the origins of life itself. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-unveil-images-historic-asteroid.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Oct 2023 04:29:58 EDT news616217393 Since Mercury is the closest planet to the sun among the solar system planets, it is strongly influenced by the solar wind, a high-speed (several hundred km/s) stream of plasma blowing from the sun. Explorations of Mercury were first carried out by the Mariner 10 spacecraft in 1974 and 1975, which revealed that Mercury has a magnetic field, and thus a magnetosphere, similar to that of Earth. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-source-electron-x-ray-aurora-mercury.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 10 Oct 2023 10:43:04 EDT news616153381 Astrophysicists have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to take a close look at a volatile star. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-flares-distant-star-habitable-planets.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:13:02 EDT news616072378 An international team of scientists has discovered a huge spike in radiocarbon levels 14,300 years ago by analyzing ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-largest-solar-storm-ancient-year-old.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 09 Oct 2023 03:00:02 EDT news615812445 Solving the mystery of how planets like Earth were formed is an important question for understanding the origin of life. Planets are thought to form when interstellar dust and gas collect in a protoplanetary disk surrounding a protostar, but it has been unclear where, when, or how planet formation begins. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-astronomers-planet-formation.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:46:53 EDT news615804409 A pair of theoretical physicists are reporting that the same observations inspiring the hunt for a ninth planet might instead be evidence within the solar system of a modified law of gravity originally developed to understand the rotation of galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-plot-thickens-ninth-planet.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 05 Oct 2023 12:54:03 EDT news615729242 A team of Earth and planetary scientists from the Southwest Research Institute, Yale University, Université Paris-Saclay, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea and Sorbonne Université has created a 3D model to show the likely impact of methane lakes on local weather on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. They have published a paper on the arXiv preprint server describing the factors that went into their model and comparing it with 2D models. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-3d-methane-lake-impact-local.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 04 Oct 2023 10:20:01 EDT news615633403 A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Planetary Scientist and Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger lobe of the pristine Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a common origin. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-large-mound-kuiper-belt-arrokoth.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Oct 2023 11:09:03 EDT news615550141 Planetary scientists have long known that Mercury has been shrinking for billions of years. Despite being the closest planet to the sun, its interior has been cooling down as internal heat leaks away. This means that the rock (and, within that, the metal) of which it is composed must have contracted slightly in volume. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-mercury-planet-smaller.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Oct 2023 10:11:44 EDT news615546700 Southwest Research Institute scientists are using telescopes to observe the asteroid Psyche in the infrared, providing context for NASA's upcoming Psyche mission. Dr. Stephanie Jarmak is using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look for water signatures on the metallic surface of Psyche, while Dr. Anicia Arredondo is using some of the last data collected by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, to study differences in Psyche's composition at different points on its surface. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-webb-sofia-telescopes-metallic.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 02 Oct 2023 15:34:37 EDT news615479673 Venus may be a (slightly) gentler place than some scientists give it credit for. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-lightning-venus.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 02 Oct 2023 14:12:07 EDT news615474721 Magnetotactic bacteria can form magnetofossils like magnetic nanocrystals as observed in the Martian meteorite ALH84001, which held a special place in the field of astrobiology primarily in the early 90s. While the flourishing of interest in magnetotactic bacteria has waned over time, a resurgence of magnetosome formation has led to a renaissance of magnetotactic bacteria (abbreviated as MTB) in astrobiology. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-renaissance-magnetotactic-bacteria-astrobiology.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:50:01 EDT news615458522 The lower portion of a Martian dust devil was captured moving along the western rim of Mars' Jezero Crater by NASA's Perseverance rover on Aug. 30, 2023, the 899th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The video, which was sped up 20 times, is composed of 21 frames taken four seconds apart by one of the rover's Navcams. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-nasa-perseverance-captures-dust-filled-martian.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:56:53 EDT news615210999 Parts of the New York City metropolitan area are sinking and rising at different rates due to factors ranging from land-use practices to long-lost glaciers, scientists have found. While the elevation changes seem small—fractions of inches per year—they can enhance or diminish local flood risk linked to sea level rise. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-areas-york-city.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 16:11:15 EDT news615049866 To safeguard Earth's biosphere, scientists have turned toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the hope that it may help to protect biodiversity. Yet this hope has been challenged by AI's appetite for water and energy rooted in AI's need for big data, iterative computations and algorithmic perfection. For example, during its learning phases, GPT-3 consumes energy at a scale approaching hundreds of megawatt-hours. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-biotechnospheres-planetary-intelligence-extraterrestrial-civilizations.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:40:01 EDT news615029739 A new series of supercomputer simulations has offered an answer to the mystery of the origins of Saturn's rings—one that involves a massive collision in the recent history of the 4.5 billion-year-old solar system. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-simulations-saturn-icy-moons.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 10:06:03 EDT news615027961