Enceladus

An image authentically shows Saturn photographed from NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its final mission in 2017.

In samples NASA brought back from the asteroid Bennu, scientists have discovered of organic compounds, including key building blocks of life like amino acids.

Aliens probably exist according to a survey of more than 1,000 scientists. Nearly 87% of them believe in extraterrestrial life. The post Do aliens exist? What scientists really think first appeared on EarthSky.

Ancient evidence suggests a new twist in how we all got here.

Europa Clipper lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on October 14, 2024 to begin a six-year journey to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which the spacecraft will fly by 49 times, coming as close as 25 km (16 miles) from the surface as it searches for ingredients of life.

A NASA spacecraft is ready to set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.

You'll never complain about humidity again.

Ceres - a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt - may once have been a muddy ocean world. That makes it a great target for future spacecraft missions. The post Dwarf planet Ceres might have been a muddy ocean world first appeared on EarthSky.

The rocky planet, roughly twice Earth's size, has offered astronomers a glimpse of one of Earth's possible futures — if it doesn't get engulfed by our expanding sun.

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.

My favorite place in the world isn't a fixed location. It's the JOIDES Resolution, an internationally funded research ship that has spent its service life constantly on the move, from deep in the Antarctic to high in the Arctic.

NASA scientists said we could find evidence of life on ocean moons like Europa and Enceladus by looking for amino acids just inches below their icy surfaces. The post Signs of life on ocean moons may be just below the surface first appeared on EarthSky.

Planetary scientists have been searching the cosmos for liquid water. Here are the most promising water worlds in the solar system and beyond.

Scientists discovered "dark oxygen" produced by deep-sea polymetallic nodules deep below sea level, redefining our understanding of ocean and early Earth life.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn and its colossal rings on July 4, 2020, during summer in the gas giant's northern hemisphere. Two

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, have evidence of oceans beneath their ice crusts. A NASA experiment suggests that if these oceans support life, signatures of that life in the form of organic molecules (e.g. amino acids, nucleic acids, etc.) could survive just under the surface ice despite the harsh radiation on these worlds. If robotic landers are sent to these moons to look for life…

The latest image from the James Webb telescope shows a pair of intertwined galaxies, known as Arp 142, and nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg.

Cool to moderately warm hydrothermal vents circulating water through the seabed could sustain habitable conditions on moons such as Jupiter's Europa and...

The coming settlement of the High Frontier doesn't have to be a repeat of the violent conquests and colonization of history. We will not take space from...