News by Subject Space & Planetary

Researchers are busy analysing some of the final data sent back from the Cassini spacecraft which has been in orbit around Saturn for more than 13 years until the end of its mission in September 2017. For the last leg of its journey, Cassini was put on a particularly daring orbit passing between Saturn and its rings which brought it closer to Saturn than ever before, allowing scientists to obtain images of Saturn's ultraviolet auroras in unprecedented resolution.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has found its first circumbinary planet, a world orbiting two stars. Called TOI 1338 b, the planet lies 1,300 light-years away and is 6.9 times larger than Earth.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.

NASA's TESS satellite has shown that the bright star Alpha Draconis and its fainter, previously known companion actually undergo mutual eclipses: a complete surprise.

Scientists have developed a new method for detecting oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres that may accelerate the search for life. UC Riverside helped develop the new technique, which will use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect a strong signal that oxygen molecules produce when they collide. This signal could help scientists distinguish between living and nonliving planets.

Moll was the only non-NASA physician NASA consulted when it was discovered that an astronaut aboard the ISS had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) -- or blood clot -- in the jugular vein of their neck. Moll co-wrote a case study on the successful treatment that has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Rice space plasma physicists develop algorithms to measure the buoyancy waves that appear in thin filaments of magnetic flux on Earth's nightside. The work adds to the Rice Convection Model that helps scientists understand space weather.