https://phys.org/space-news/planetary-sciences en-us Planetary science and exoplanets exploration news stories and features from Phys.org Yale researchers may have solved a longstanding puzzle as to why certain metallic meteorites show traces of a magnetic field—a finding that may shed light on the formation of magnetic dynamos at the core of planets. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-collisions-asteroids-formation-metal-generate.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:29:08 EDT news610129740 The first rocket launch from the surface of another planet will be accomplished using two solid rocket motors. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-mars-ascent-vehicle-sample.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:03:27 EDT news610041799 Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. István Szapudi, an astronomer at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, has proposed a novel approach—a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a tethered, captured asteroid as a counterweight. Engineering studies using this approach could start now to create a workable design that could mitigate climate change within decades. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-sun-umbrella-tethered-asteroid-mitigate.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 16:01:03 EDT news610038062 An asteroid discovery algorithm—designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky—has identified its first "potentially hazardous" asteroid, a term for space rocks in Earth's vicinity that scientists like to keep an eye on. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-algorithm-ensnares-potentially-hazardous-asteroid.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:19:08 EDT news610028339 At one time, astronomers believed that the planets formed in their current orbits, which remained stable over time. But more recent observations, theory, and calculations have shown that planetary systems are subject to shake-ups and change. Periodically, planets are kicked out of their star systems to become "rogue planets," bodies that are no longer gravitationally bound to any star and are adrift in the interstellar medium (ISM). Some of these planets may be gas giants with tightly bound icy moons orbiting them, which they could bring with them into the ISM. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-rogue-planets-explore.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:47:05 EDT news610026421 We have discovered more than 5,400 planets in the universe. These worlds range from hot jovians that closely orbit their star to warm ocean worlds to cold gas giants. While we know they are there, we don't know much about them. Characteristics such as mass and size are fairly straightforward to measure, but other properties such as temperature and atmospheric composition are more difficult. So the next generation of telescopes will try to capture that information, including one proposed telescope from the Chinese National Space Administration. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-chinese-scientists-concept-meter-space.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 12:44:03 EDT news610026241 In 2026, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch its next-generation exoplanet-hunting mission, the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO). https://phys.org/news/2023-07-plato-mission-successful-planet-hunter.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 10:16:04 EDT news610017361 After a remarkable life in orbit, Aeolus is out of fuel and out of time—it's returning to Earth this week. Planned and built before any regulations were put in place on "end-of-life" disposal, the Earth explorer was designed to naturally return through our atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-aeolus-reentry-breakdown.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 15:40:02 EDT news609691201 As the next generation of giant, high-powered observatories begin to come online, a new study suggests that their instruments may offer scientists an unparalleled opportunity to discern what weather may be like on far-away exoplanets. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-cosmic-weather-worlds-life.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:17 EDT news609688513 Life around an ill-tempered red dwarf star is no fun for accompanying newborn planets. Call it a baptism of fire. Entangled magnetic fields cause a red dwarf to spit out "super-flares" that are 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares seen on our sun. That is coupled with blistering ultraviolet radiation requiring any of the star system's inhabitants to use "sunscreen 5,000." https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hubble-evaporating-planet-hiccups.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 13:28:48 EDT news609683323 By conducting radial velocity (RV) follow-up observations of the GJ 367 planetary system with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), an international team of astronomers has detected two additional alien worlds, at least four times as massive as the Earth. The finding was reported July 18 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-additional-exoplanets-nearby-planetary.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:10:01 EDT news609672853 The spinning, solar-powered spacecraft will take another look of the fiery Jovian moon on July 30. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-juno-closer-jupiter-moon.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:42:06 EDT news609608522 Infrared spectra of anhydrous grains from the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu indicate a connection between one of the reservoirs from which Ryugu's parent body originated and the reservoirs that formed comets and primitive asteroids in the outer protoplanetary disk. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-asteroid-ryugu-anhydrous-ingredients-afar.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 10:34:58 EDT news609586484 Eager scientists and a gleaming lab awaits. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-lab-life-blocks-asteroid.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 05:00:36 EDT news609566423 Imagine a volcanic island about the size of France and over 20,000 meters high. Such a landscape may once have existed on the planet Mars. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-mars-olympus-mons-giant-volcanic.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 17:01:05 EDT news609523264 The world is unprepared for the next big storm from outer space, an overwhelming majority of scientists agree. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-space-storms-chaos.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 12:34:03 EDT news609507241 Aerosols, suspended particles in the atmosphere, influence the Earth's climate system by directly scattering and absorbing solar and terrestrial radiations as well as by acting as cloud condensation nuclei and ice nuclei to modify the properties of clouds. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-scientists-aerosol-method-newly-satellite.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:53:03 EDT news609501181 A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researchers have detected large dusty clumps, close to a young star, that could collapse to create giant planets. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-image-reveals-secrets-planet-birth.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:00:01 EDT news609436437 Researchers from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London have spotted a "retired" asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star passing through a young star-forming region, something which was previously thought not to happen. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-older-evolved-stars-star-forming-region.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:05:03 EDT news609429901 Motion of the Earth's surface mass, including the atmosphere and oceans as well as hydrology and glacier melting, causes the redistribution of Earth's surface loads, deformation of the solid Earth, and variations in the gravity field. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-space-geodetic-reveal-variations-earth.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:21:04 EDT news609416462 Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the MPIA-led MINDS research collaboration discovered water in the inner region of a disk of gas and dust around the young star PDS 70. Astronomers expect terrestrial planets to be forming in that zone. This is the first detection of that kind in a disk that hosts at least two planets. Any rocky planets produced in the inner disk would benefit from a substantial local water reservoir, improving the chances of habitability later on. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-jwst-disk-young-star-giant.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news609147541 An international team of space scientists has found evidence that hydrogen peroxide on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, exists only on its higher latitudes. For their research, reported in the journal Science Advances, the group studied data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hydrogen-peroxide-jupiter-moon-ganymede.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:20:01 EDT news609412214 When a NASA spacecraft successfully knocked an asteroid off course last year it sent dozens of boulders skittering into space, images from the Hubble telescope showed on Thursday. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-asteroid-smashing-nasa-probe-boulders-space.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 23 Jul 2023 09:30:01 EDT news609085778 As a new space race heats up, two researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas and their colleagues have proposed a new scientific subfield: planetary geoarchaeology, the study of how cultural and natural processes on Earth's moon, on Mars and across the solar system may be altering, preserving or destroying the material record of space exploration. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-space-scientists-geoarchaeology-aid-heritage.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 12:58:21 EDT news609163097 Microparticle dust aggregates, which are thought to play a role in the formation of new planets, are less likely to stick together after a collision when the aggregates are larger. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-size-stickiness-cosmic-aggregates.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 10:46:03 EDT news609155161 A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth's sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics. The team compared the early collision histories of the two bodies and determined that Venus likely experienced higher-speed, higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core that promoted extended volcanism and resurfaced the planet. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-high-energy-impacts-fueled-venus.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:50:05 EDT news609086998 Wayward asteroids present a real collision hazard to Earth. Scientists estimate that an asteroid measuring several miles across smashed into Earth 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, among other forms of life, in a mass extinction. Unlike the dinosaurs, humanity can avoid this fate if we begin practicing how to knock an Earth-approaching asteroid off course. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hubble-boulders-asteroid-dimorphos.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 12:47:03 EDT news609076021 An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new "super-Earth" exoplanet with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The newfound alien world, designated TOI-1680 b, is about 50% larger than the Earth and orbits an M-dwarf star located some 120 light years away. The finding was detailed in a paper published July 11 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-super-earth-orbiting-m-dwarf-star.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 20 Jul 2023 09:20:01 EDT news609062291 NASA's Perseverance Mars rover sealed the tube containing its 20th rock core sample on June 23 (the 832nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission), and the mission's science team is excited about its potential. That's because this sample was drilled by the rover from an outcrop composed of tiny chunks of other rocks that were carried from elsewhere by a river in the distant past and deposited here, where they became cemented together. Conglomerates like this one (nicknamed "Emerald Lake" by the team) pack a lot of information about places the rover may never visit, with each new rock fragment representing a geologic a story to be told. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-river-nasa-perseverance-mars.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jul 2023 15:37:02 EDT news608999821 One of the most commonly discussed challenges when starting our species' space exploration journey is how to get the resources necessary for life off of the Earth. Typically this is thought of as two things—water and oxygen, but, luckily, oxygen can be supplied by splitting apart a water molecule, so the most critical resource we could find in space is water. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-large-amounts-moon-sun.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:51:05 EDT news608997062