Data from the Juno spacecraft also suggest that Jupiter’s moon has a relatively smooth, low-density surface.
moons
Posted inResearch & Developments
Scientists Might Have Detected the First Moon Outside Our Solar System… It Just Depends How You Define “Moon.”
What exactly is a moon? It’s an existential question lunar researchers found themselves pondering when they discovered an exosatellite at least 90% the size of Jupiter, orbiting a brown dwarf in a solar system about 73 light-years away from Earth.
Posted inNews
Oddball Moon Might Be a Neptune Original After All
Infrared observations of Nereid hint that it might have formed in orbit around Neptune, unlike most of the planet’s other satellites.
Posted inNews
Uranus’s Small Moons Are Dark, Red, and Water-Poor
…Except for Mab, which is even weirder than expected.
Posted inNews
Sediments Hint at Large Ancient Martian Moon
Regular, alternating layers in Gale Crater may have been deposited as the result of tides raised by a moon at least 18 times the mass of Phobos, a study says.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Webb Telescope Spies Io’s Volcanic Activity and Sulfurous Atmosphere
New James Webb Space Telescope images reveal cooling lava, volcanic sulfur monoxide gas, and sulfur gas emissions created by interactions between plasma and the moon’s atmosphere.
Posted inNews
Tiny Uranian Moon Likely Had a Massive Subsurface Ocean
Ariel’s tempestuous subsurface ocean may have once composed more than half its total volume.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Jupiter’s Moon Callisto Is Very Likely an Ocean World
A closer look at previously disregarded observations reveals stronger evidence that a deep ocean lies beneath Callisto’s icy surface.
Posted inFeatures
A Dragonfly for Titan
A new eight-rotor robotic probe will head to the solar system’s most Earth-like moon. Here’s what its team is doing to prepare.
Posted inNews
Pluto Captured Charon with a Kiss
A newly understood collision mechanism could explain some peculiarities of Pluto and its moons.