Scientists are applying climate models to distant planets to determine their habitability.
Space & Planets
Posted inNews
NASA Space Telescope Spots Its Third Planet
A planet 3 times as large as the Earth was detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in a relatively leisurely orbit—the longest yet detected by this telescope—of 36 days.
Posted inNews
Lander Gives First Look at Moon’s Farside
The mission aims to explore this relatively unstudied hemisphere and learn about its age, composition, and geologic history.
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New Horizons Sends First Looks of 2014 MU69
Explore 10 things scientists have already learned about the most distant object visited by a spacecraft from Earth.
Posted inOpinions
The Mars Anthropocene
The idea of sending people to Mars has captured the public imagination, but have we fully considered how our presence will alter the planet?
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Jupiter’s Stressed Out Magnetosphere Causes Aurora and Heating
Force imbalance between Jupiter’s ionosphere and magnetosphere leads to wave generation to release this stress, but the waves also accelerate particles, causing aurora and heating.
Posted inNews
New Horizons Spacecraft to Reach Farthest Body in Solar System Yet
The flyby of Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day will give us our first glimpse of a mysterious Kuiper Belt object.
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Exoplanet Strategy Promotes Big Missions, Individual Science
Collaborative and interdisciplinary research will be key to realizing the missions’ full potential, according to the exoplanet strategy report.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
First Multi-Decade Simulation of the Earth’s Radiation Belt
A new simulation of the Earth’s electron radiation belts captures large-scale variations over nearly three solar cycles, and replicates primary cyclical features and extreme behaviors.
Posted inNews
Uranus and Neptune Should Be Top Priority, Says Report
Voyager 2 visited the ice giants in the 1980s, the only craft ever to do so. Planetary scientists argue that new missions to each planet would also benefit heliophysics and exoplanet research.