Category: Planetary Science Division

Regions on Asteroid Explored by NASA’s Lucy Mission Get Official Names

The IAU (International Astronomical Union), a global naming authority for celestial objects, has approved official names for features on Donaldjohanson, an asteroid NASA’s Lucy spacecraft visited on April 20.

NASA to Share Details of New Perseverance Mars Rover Finding

NASA will host a news conference at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, to discuss the analysis of a rock sampled by the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover last year, which is the subject of a forthcoming science paper. The agency previously announced this event as a teleconference.  Watch the news conference on NASA’s YouTube channel and the agency’s […]

NASA to Share Details of New Perseverance Mars Rover Finding

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 10, to discuss the analysis of a rock sampled by the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover last year, which is the subject of a forthcoming science paper. The sample, called “Sapphire Canyon,” was collected in July 2024 from a set of rocky outcrops on […]

NASA’s Artemis II Lunar Science Operations to Inform Future Missions

While the Artemis II crew will be the first humans to test NASA’s Orion spacecraft in space, they will also conduct science investigations that will inform future deep space missions, including a lunar science investigation as Orion flies about 4,000 to 6,000 miles from the Moon’s surface.

NASA’s Apollo Samples, LRO Help Scientists Predict Moonquakes

Moonquakes pose little risk to astronauts during a mission lasting just a few days. But their effects on longer-term lunar surface assets could be significant.

Near-Earth Asteroids as of September 2025

Each month, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office releases a monthly update featuring the most recent figures on NASA’s planetary defense efforts, near-Earth object close approaches, and other timely facts about comets and asteroids that could pose an impact hazard with Earth. Here is what we’ve found so far. Updated: September 11, 2025

Percolating Clues: NASA Models New Way to Build Planetary Cores

A new NASA study reveals a surprising way planetary cores may have formed—one that could reshape how scientists understand the early evolution of rocky planets like Mars. Conducted by a team of early-career scientists and long-time researchers across the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the study […]

NASA’s Dragonfly Mission Sets Sights on Titan’s Mysteries

When it descends through the thick golden haze on Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft will find eerily familiar terrain. Dunes wrap around Titan’s equator. Clouds drift across its skies. Rain drizzles. Rivers flow, forming canyons, lakes and seas.  But not everything is as familiar as it seems. At minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit, the dune […]

Planetary Alignment Provides NASA Rare Opportunity to Study Uranus

When a planet’s orbit brings it between Earth and a distant star, it’s more than just a cosmic game of hide and seek. It’s an opportunity for NASA to improve its understanding of that planet’s atmosphere and rings. Planetary scientists call it a stellar occultation and that’s exactly what happened with Uranus on April 7. […]

Can Solar Wind Make Water on Moon? NASA Experiment Shows Maybe 

Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the Sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the Moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind smashes into the lunar surface, the idea goes, it triggers a chemical reaction that could make water molecules.    Now, in the most realistic lab […]