News by Subject Space & Planetary

Scientists may need to rethink their estimates for how many planets outside our solar system could host a rich diversity of life. In a new study, a UC Riverside-led team discovered that a buildup of toxic gases in the atmospheres of most planets makes them unfit for complex life as we know it.

An article published in the SPIE publication Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (JATIS), 'Polarization Modeling and Predictions for DKIST Part 5: Impacts of enhanced mirror and dichroic coatings on system polarization calibration,' marks a substantial advance in ensuring the accurate solar information measured and collected by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST).

Scientists with a NASA-led expedition are operating from the Inner Space Center at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography as colleagues explore the deep Pacific Ocean to prepare to search for life in deep space.

Scientists today announced a major new finding about how matter behaves in the extreme conditions of the sun's atmosphere. Their work has shed new light on the exotic but poorly understood 'fourth state of matter,' known as plasma, which could hold the key to developing safe, clean and efficient nuclear energy generators on Earth.

Newly discovered layers of ice buried a mile beneath Mars' north pole are the remnants of ancient polar ice sheets and could be one of the largest water reservoirs on the planet, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona. The layers of ice are a record of past climate on Mars in much the same way tree rings are a record of climate on Earth.

A novel Henry Ford Hospital study of mice aboard a Russian spaceflight may raise an intriguing question for the astronauts of tomorrow: Could traveling in space be bad for your joints? Researchers found early signs of cartilage breakdown in the mice, suggesting that the reduced biomechanical forces of spaceflight are at play on the musculoskeletal system.

In 2020, NASA and European-Russian missions will look for evidence of past life on Mars. But while volcanic, igneous rock predominates on the Red Planet, virtually the entire Earth fossil record comes from sedimentary rocks. Addressing the problem in Frontiers in Earth Science, Swedish scientists have begun compiling evidence of fossilized microbes in underexplored igneous rock environments on Earth, to help guide where to search for a Martian fossil record - and what to look for.

The study of a new water-cycle in the Martian summertime offers clues as to why Mars is a dusty barren land.

A new analysis suggests that the moon is actively shrinking and producing moonquakes along thousands of cliffs called thrust faults spread over the moon's surface. The faults are likely the result of the moon's interior cooling and shrinking, causing the surface crust to shrivel and crack like a raisin's skin. The research, published in Nature Geoscience, combines data from NASA's Apollo and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions.