planetary science

Illustration: NASATheir analysis looks convincing, says Andrew Rivkin, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory who studies the composition of asteroids and who was not involved in the paper. “Short…

Seven years after it left for the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is returning with a celestial souvenir. On the morning of Sunday, September 24, as it passes by Earth the probe will release a canister holding…

At first glance, the grit crust could seem like a routine example of what researchers call a biological soil crust, or “biocrust”—a community of coexisting bacteria, fungi, algae, and other microorganisms that caps the soil in coherent…

Nearly one year ago, NASA flung the DART spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour. It was the first test to see whether they could slightly deflect a space rock’s trajectory using a high-speed collision, a…

In the early 2000s, Phil Plait wrote his first book, Bad Astronomy, which debunked conspiracy theories and fallacies, like the idea that NASA faked the moon landings in the 1970s or that planetary alignments can affect life on Earth.…

Some of the best movies are origin stories. When we know where a superhero is coming from, then we can understand why they do what they do. The same goes for planets: knowing how they formed is key in understanding their internal…

An artist’s illustration of the hot Jupiter with a wacky weather pattern.Illustration: Engine House VFXNew observations of the football-shaped exoplanet known as WASP-121b have revealed clues to its atmosphere and weather. Astronomers…

A radar view of Lake Vostok, located deep beneath the Antarctic ice. Image: NASA Scientific Visualization StudioOkay, we’re cheating a bit here, but Lake Vostok in Antarctica certainly qualifies as the most unearthly body of water on…