Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers shooting tiny grains of ice into space. These grains could hold traces of life − but researchers need the right tools to tell.
Earth’s North Sea coastline, including the Stacks of Duncansby in Caithness.
David Rothery
Phosphorus is the most elusive element crucial for life as we know it – and we now have the first evidence there’s some available in the oceans of Enceladus.
Ice particles, with just a trace of phosphates, venting from near Enceladus’s south pole, as imaged by Cassini in 2010.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
A scholar of Greek mythology explains the naming of NASA’s missions after mythological figures and why the name Artemis is indicative of a more diverse era of space exploration.
Such a mission could be developed soon, allowing astrophysicists to take selfies of the solar system and use the Sun’s gravity as a lens to peer deep into space.
The Earth is round.
Alistair Berg/DigitalVision via Getty Images
From the tallest cliff in the solar system to its largest impact basin, geological processes on other worlds are very similar to those on our own planet.
On Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn will be so close together they will almost appear to be touching.
(Unsplash)
From the birth of Jesus Christ to Newton’s discovery of gravity, great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn have many notable connections in human history.
The 2020 winter solstice night will be accompanied by another cosmic event known as ‘the great conjunction,’ when Saturn and Jupiter will appear right next to each other.
Andrew Doughty/EyeEm via Getty Images and Jeff Dai/Stocktrek via Getty Images
The 2020 winter solstice is also when Saturn and Jupiter appear closest to each other for 60 years, Here’s what you need to know about both the events.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover takes a selfie on Mars in June, 2018.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dr Rudi Kuhn, South African Astronomical Observatory
We’re not sure how the rings work or how they formed, but there are a few theories.
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Many people are still upset that Pluto was demoted from being a planet. But definitions of various celestial objects are fairly fluid. So whether it is an asteroid or moon or planet is up for debate.