OUTERPLANETS

845 articles

Scientists solve 40-year mystery over Jupiter's X-ray aurora
Jul 12, 2021 (SPX)
The X-rays are part of Jupiter's aurora - bursts of visible and invisible light that occur when charged particles interact with the planet's atmosphere. A simil...
Giant comet found in outer solar system by Dark Energy Survey
Jun 28, 2021 (SPX)
A giant comet has been discovered by two astronomers following a comprehensive search of data from Dark Energy Survey (DES). The comet, which is estimated to be...
Next stop Jupiter as country's interplanetary ambitions grow
Jun 16, 2021 (XNA)
Zhang Rongqiao, an official at the China National Space Administration and chief planner of the Tianwen 1 Mars mission, told reporters at a news conference at h...
First images of Ganymede as Juno sailed by
Jun 09, 2021 (JPL)
"This is the closest any spacecraft has come to this mammoth moon in a generation," said Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Inst...
Leiden astronomers calculate genesis of Oort cloud in chronologically order
Jun 04, 2021 (SPX)
The Oort cloud was discovered in 1950 by the Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort to explain why there continue to be new comets with elongated orbits in our solar...
NASA's Juno to get a close look at Jupiter's Moon Ganymede
Jun 04, 2021 (SPX)
Along with striking imagery, the solar-powered spacecraft's flyby will yield insights into the moon's composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and ice shell. Jun...
Jupiter antenna that came in from the cold
May 31, 2021 (ESA)
The Sub-millimetre Wave Instrument of ESA's Juice mission will survey the churning atmosphere of Jupiter and the scanty atmospheres of its Galilean moons. Testi...
Europa's interior may be hot enough to fuel seafloor volcanoes
May 27, 2021 (JPL)
Scientists have strong evidence that Europa harbors an enormous ocean between its icy crust and rocky interior. The new work shows how the moon may have enough ...
Experiments validate the possibility of helium rain inside Jupiter and Saturn
May 27, 2021 (SPX)
In a paper published by Nature, scientists reveal experimental evidence to support this long-standing prediction, showing that helium rain is possible over a ra...
Deep water on Neptune and Uranus may be magnesium-rich
May 18, 2021 (SPX)
In a new study recently published in Nature Astronomy, a team of scientists re-created the temperature and pressure of the interiors of Neptune and Uranus in th...
Juice arrives at ESA's technical heart
May 07, 2021 (ESA)
The spacecraft arrived at ESTEC, ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre, from Airbus Friedrichshafen in Germany last week. It is now being unpacked...
Search for life on Jupiter moon Europa bolstered by new study
Apr 23, 2021 (UPI)
Europa is believed to contain subterranean salty water hidden by a thick outer shell of ice. But according to a new study examining the moon's topology, a certa...
New Horizons reaches a rare space milestone
Apr 16, 2021 (SPX)
As New Horizons crossed the solar system, and its distance from Earth jumped from millions to billions of miles, that time between contacts grew from a few minu...
17-year Neptune study reveals surprising temperature changes
Apr 11, 2021 (UPI)
The expert international team spent nearly two decades keeping a close watch on the gaseous planet's temperatures using ground-based telescopes, including the E...
New research reveals secret to Jupiter's curious aurora activity
Apr 11, 2021 (SPX)
New research about Jupiter proves that point - and adds to the intrigue. Peter Delamere, a professor of space physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geop...
NASA's Europa Clipper builds hardware, moves toward assembly
Apr 02, 2021 (JPL)
With an internal global ocean twice the size of Earth's oceans combined, Jupiter's moon Europa carries the potential for conditions suitable for life. But the f...
First X-rays from Uranus Discovered
Apr 01, 2021 (SPX)
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has two sets of rings around its equator. The planet, which has four times the diameter of Earth, rotates on its s...
SwRI scientists discover a new auroral feature on Jupiter
Mar 30, 2021 (SPX)
"We think these newly discovered faint ultraviolet features originate millions of miles away from Jupiter, near the Jovian magnetosphere's boundary with the sol...
The PI's Perspective: Far From Home
Mar 26, 2021 (SPX)
I'm going to focus this PI's Perspective on a major upcoming mission mile marker - namely, New Horizons being 50 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun next month...
SwRI scientists help identify the first stratospheric winds measured on Jupiter
Mar 19, 2021 (SPX)
Jupiter's distinctive red and white bands of swirling clouds allow scientists to track winds in the planet's lower atmosphere, and the SwRI team members have pa...
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