planetaria

A new survey algorithm - called Transit Least-Squares - has just caused the number of known, rocky, Earth-sized worlds orbiting distant stars to grow again, as astronomers add another 18 exoplanets to the list.

Does Pluto have an ocean? That idea seems preposterous at first, but a new study adds to the growing evidence for a subsurface ocean on this distant dwarf planet ... and explains how it stays liquid.

Composite high-resolution view of 2014 MU69, as seen by New Horizons on Jan. 1, 2019. Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute//Roman Tkac…

Dwarf planet Haumea orbits in Pluto's realm of the solar system. It's the most distant little world known to have a ring. Scientists in Brazil have new insights on how Haumea's ring maintains its nearly perfect circular shape.

Distant water exoplanets might have oceans thousands of miles deep. That's in contrast to Earth's ocean, which is about 6.8 miles (about 11 km) deep at its deepest point.

Here's how NASA's MESSENGER mission - which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015 - let scientists finally solve one of Mercury's biggest mysteries, about whether its innermost core is liquid or solid.

Launched in 2018, TESS is NASA's new space-based exoplanet hunter. Now it's found its 1st Earth-sized world orbiting a nearby star. The discovery bodes well, scientists say, for finding more similar worlds in the near future.

'Oumuamua - 1st known object to sweep past us from beyond our solar system - caused a stir when astronomers spotted it in 2017. Now a new study suggests another interstellar object might have hit the Earth in 2014.

Cassini data now reveal that some of Titan's lakes are surprisingly deep.

NASA’s Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely “marsquake.”

In 2013, in a big success story, a Mars rover and orbiter made a near-simultaneous observation of methane in Mars' atmosphere. Now a newer mission orbiting Mars - ESA's Trace Gas Orbiter - has failed to detect methane. Why?

Intense UV radiation from red dwarf stars was thought to make potentially habitable exoplanets unable to support life. But a new study of the 4 nearest rocky worlds suggests otherwise.

The discovery of fossilized microbes in Martian meteorites has been claimed before. Now scientists in Hungary add a new study of the ALH-77005 meteorite, with some intriguing new evidence.

Mars is a cold, dry desert, but a new study provides tantalizing evidence for liquid water deep below its surface. If it exists, this Mars groundwater might cause the weird dark streaks in Martian craters and canyons.

These images from ESA's ExoMars orbiter show Mars in all of its diverse geological wonder. Also, if you look carefully, you can spy NASA's newest Mars mission, the InSight lander!