Category: Planetary Science Division

NASA Back for Seconds with New Food System Design Challenge

NASA is getting ready to send four astronauts around the Moon with Artemis II, laying the foundation for sustainable missions to the lunar surface and paving the way for human exploration on Mars. As the agency considers deep space endeavors that could last months or years, it must develop ways to feed astronauts beyond sending […]

Flight Engineers Give NASA’s Dragonfly Lift

In sending a car-sized rotorcraft to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly mission will undertake an unprecedented voyage of scientific discovery. And the work to ensure that this first-of-its-kind project can fulfill its ambitious exploration vision is underway in some of the nation’s most advanced space simulation and testing laboratories. Set for launch in in […]

NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean

A key discovery from NASA’s Cassini mission in 2008 was that Saturn’s largest moon Titan may have a vast water ocean below its hydrocarbon-rich surface. But reanalysis of mission data suggests a more complicated picture: Titan’s interior is more likely composed of ice, with layers of slush and small pockets of warm water that form […]

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 […]