Tidal Heating

Io is the most volcanically active world in our solar system. Now, NASA scientists have revealed how and why.

New images of Jupiter's volcano-studded moon Io, taken by the Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in Arizona, offer the highest resolution of Io ever achieved with an Earth-based instrument. The observations were made possible by a new high-contrast optical imaging instrument, dubbed SHARK-VIS, and the telescope's adaptive optics system, which compensates for the blurring induced by atmospheric turbulence.

James Webb's latest gaze into the cosmos reveals unexpected secrets within  the Kuiper Belt's icy realms.

The Juno spacecraft has revealed some fascinating things about Jupiter since it began exploring the system on July 4th, 2016. Not only is it the first robotic mission to study Jupiter up close while orbiting it since the Galileo spacecraft, which studied the gas giant and its satellites from 1995 to 2003. Juno is also … Continue reading "NASA's Juno Probe Makes Another Close Flyby of Io"

Although it is relatively small, Enceladus—the sixth largest of Saturn's 83 moons—has been considered by astronomers to be one of the more compelling bodies in our solar system.

A scientist recently set out to prove that the tiny, innermost moon of Saturn was a frozen inert satellite and instead discovered compelling evidence that Mimas has a liquid internal ocean. In the waning days of NASA's Cassini mission, the spacecraft identified a curious libration, or oscillation, in the moon's rotation, which often points to a geologically active body able to support an internal ocean.

Early interactions with the Earth may have heated up the Moon and caused it to remelt, producing new lunar rocks and erasing old craters.

There is a significant difference between the two edges of the atmosphere of WASP-107b, a super-Neptune exoplanet about the size of Jupiter but only a tenth of its mass.

Io's volcanoes are powered by both the extreme tides from Jupiter and the gravitational interactions between it and Jupiter's other moons.

By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter's moon Io—the most volcanically active location in the solar system—Cornell astronomers have been able to study a fundamental process in planetary formation and evolution: tidal heating.

The Europa Clipper remains on track for launch Oct. 10 to study Jupiter's icy moon Europa, where a vast ocean lurks beneath an icy crust.

A surprisingly low amount of methane explains how WASP-107 b grew into the inflated world we see today.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has been investigating Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and has observed some dramatic features.

The subsurface ocean on an icy moon of Saturn appears to have the ingredients needed for "habitability."

A new analysis of Kepler data shows that one-third of small stars called M dwarfs may have the potential to host life.

Could vast, long-hidden oceans be teeming with alien life in our very own Solar System?

Could there be microbial life on Io? Jupiter's hostile volcanic moon seems an unlikely home, but astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch says it's not impossible. The post Life on Io? An astrobiologist says it's possible first appeared on EarthSky.

It's a planet on the move.

New observations by the Webb space telescope show that the giant exoplanet WASP-107 b has an asymmetric atmosphere between its western and eastern hemispheres. The post Puffy exoplanet WASP-107 b has an asymmetric atmosphere first appeared on EarthSky.

The Europa Clipper remains on track for launch Oct. 10 to study Jupiter's icy moon Europa, where a vast ocean lurks beneath an icy crust.