Humans have been living in space for years, but it took endless research and planning to make that possible. Everything we take for granted on the surface of the planet, where we have gravity and resources to accommodate our every whim, has to be engineered to work in space. Scientists have yet to solve every …
The atmosphere of Mars is thin and, compared to Earth, barely even there at all, but it can still teach us about the history of the planet and its present-day status. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is a project from the European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos, recently detected a gas that it never …
The Moon has water ice hiding near its poles, which is something that is a fairly recent discovery. The ice could hold clues about where the water on Earth came from and tell us a lot about the history of the Earth-Moon system. An increasing number of missions to the Moon’s poles could potentially contaminate …
Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is one of the few places in our solar system where we might be able to find life. New research focused on the water plumes that spew from its surface and attempted to explain them. A theory suggests that the plumes are water that was trapped in ice bubbles after …
NASA announced the confirmation of water on the lunar surface. The discovery is big, but scientists had believed that there was water trapped within the lunar soil for some time now. Processing the soil, called regolith, to obtain usable water is something that researchers have been working on for some time. Hey so remember last …
The asteroid known as Bennu has revealed some tantalizing secrets to NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Some rocks and surface features of the asteroid appear to indicate that water once flowed on its surface or that of its parent asteroid. NASA’s asteroid probe will begin its return journey to Earth in December and arrive back to Earth …
Researchers think they’ve spotted signatures of liquid water hiding out beneath the surface of Mars. The south pole in particular is apparently a hot spot for subglacial lakes, according to data from the Mars Express spacecraft. Future missions could investigate the claims and provide proof. Just exactly how much liquid water is on Mars? If …
Mars had vast rivers of flowing water for tens of thousands of years, scientists now say. The discovery is based on images sent back by NASA’s Mars orbiter which revealed sediment deposits and telltale signs of flowing water on the surface of the planet. The rivers date back 3.7 billion years, so it will be …
Ancient Mars may have received its wealth of water from a couple of major sources, new research suggests. Studying the content of Martian meteorites that arrived on Earth revealed different hydrogen isotopes that hint at the planet’s watery history. A small amount of water and ice remains on Mars today, but the planet is believed …
For scientists studying Jupiter, there’s plenty to see. The gas giant has a wealth of personality, and its swirling storms and colorful streams of gas provide researchers with a lot to observe. One aspect of the massive planet that isn’t often talked about is its amount of water, but new data from NASA’s Juno orbiter …
