Tag: Planetary Geology
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Mercury: The Planet That Should Not Exist
Mercury’s Curious Position in the Solar System Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and the closest to the Sun. Its size, density, and orbital dynamics have long puzzled scientists. Despite being a rocky world like Earth and Venus, Mercury’s extremely tight orbit and unexpectedly high metallic core have raised questions about how…
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Mars’ Ancient Ice Age: How Deep Scratches and Craters Reveal a Frozen Past
Unveiling Mars’s Ice Age Footprints Scientists are turning the pages of Martian history with fresh insights into a long-ago ice age that likely reshaped the Red Planet’s geography. High-resolution imagery from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter has revealed striking “scratches” and deep craters carved into the surface. These features, born from the slow…
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How an Ancient Ice Age Carved Deep Scratches on Mars
Unveiling an Ice Age on the Red Planet For decades, scientists have grappled with questions about Mars’ climatic past. A compelling new chapter emerges from high-resolution images taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. These photographs reveal long, scar-like features and deep craters that point to a dramatic period when the Red Planet…
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Mars Ice Age Shaped the Red Planet’s Surface, Reveals New Data
Introduction: A Planetary Ice Age Revealed Recent high-resolution images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter are offering a clearer view of Mars’ past. Scientists are interpreting these features as evidence of a long-ago Martian Ice Age that carved deep grooves, scratches, and craters into the Red Planet’s terrain. The findings shed light on…
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Io’s Hidden Heat: Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Reveals Surprising Heat Levels
Io’s Fiery Heart Revealed by Juno Data Jupiter’s moon Io has long held a reputation as the solar system’s most volcanic world. Now, new analyses of data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft suggest that Io may be hundreds of times hotter at its surface than scientists previously estimated. The findings, while nuanced, point to a moon…
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Five Venus Missions That Could Launch in the Next Decade to Study Earth’s Evil Twin
Background: Venus as Earth’s Evil Twin Venus, often called Earth’s twin due to its similar size and composition, is anything but similar in climate and surface conditions. With a scorching surface, a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, and sulfurous clouds, Venus remains one of the solar system’s most intriguing and least understood worlds. After the recent…
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures Mars’s Clearest Panoramic Image Yet
Overview: A Record-Breaking Martian Panorama In a milestone for Mars exploration, NASA’s Perseverance rover has produced what scientists are calling the clearest panoramic image of the Red Planet to date. The mosaic, stitched from 96 individual photographs taken on May 26, 2025, comes from a site the team nicknames “Falbreen.” Using the Mastcam-Z instrument, Perseverance…
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Proto Earth Unearthed: First Evidence of 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Building Blocks
Unveiling the Ancient Blueprint of Earth Geologists and planetary scientists have moved a major step closer to understanding Earth’s origins. In a study published in Nature Geosciences, researchers from MIT and international partners report the first direct evidence of materials from the planet’s proto Earth—the primordial world that formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago before…
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Could Saturn’s Moon Mimas Hide a Newborn Ocean? A Mission in the Making
Is Mimas Hosting a Newborn Ocean? Saturn’s moon Mimas, long famous for its ominous “Death Star” crater Herschel, may be hiding a newborn ocean beneath its icy shell. New analyses of Cassini data, combined with advances in modeling tidal heating, suggest that the moon’s ice shell could have melted recently enough to form a liquid…
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Mars Ancient Ocean Existence: New Research Supports It
New Research Bolsters the Case for an Ancient Martian Ocean For years, scientists have argued that Mars was once a world with a warmer climate, a thicker atmosphere, and liquid water on its surface. A new study from researchers at the University of Arkansas adds weight to this view by examining sedimentary features on Mars…