A new theory suggests that Titan's majestic dune fields may have come from outer space. Researchers had always assumed that the sand making up Titan's dunes was locally made, through erosion or condensed from atmospheric ...
Saturn has 146 confirmed moons—more than any other planet in the solar system—but one called Enceladus stands out. It appears to have the ingredients for life.
In 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted water vapor on Jupiter's moon Europa. The vapor was evidence of plumes similar to the ones on Saturn's moon Enceladus. That, and other compelling evidence, showed that the moon ...
Earth was long thought to be the only planet in our solar system with an ocean, but it is beginning to look as though there are underground oceans inside even the most surprising icy bodies.
A fresh, icy crust hides a deep, enigmatic ocean. Plumes of water burst through cracks in the ice, shooting into space. An intrepid lander collects samples and analyzes them for hints of life.
The ice-encrusted oceans of some of the moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter are leading candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. A new lab-based study led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Freie ...
For nearly 50 years, NASA's Voyager 1 mission has competed for the title of deep space's little engine that could. Launched in 1977 along with its twin, Voyager 2, the spacecraft is now soaring more than 15 billion miles ...
In the next decade, space agencies will expand the search for extraterrestrial life beyond Mars, where all of our astrobiology efforts are currently focused. This includes the ESA's JUpiter ICy moon's Explorer (JUICE) and ...
Jupiter's icy moon Europa has long been thought of as one of the most habitable worlds in the Solar System. Now the Juno mission to Jupiter has directly sampled its atmosphere in detail for the first time. The results, published ...
Decades before any probe dips a toe—and thermometer—into the waters of distant ocean worlds, Cornell astrobiologists have devised a novel way to determine ocean temperatures based on the thickness of their ice shells, ...
