Tag: Planetary Geology
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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…
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Platinum from Space: Moon Craters as Potential Mining Targets
Platinum in the Moon’s Craters: A New Frontier for Space Resources A study led by an independent Canadian astronomer, Jayant Chennamangalam, and published in Planetary and Space Science, argues that the Moon’s impact basins could house substantial platinum-group metal (PGM) deposits. The research shifts the spotlight from near-Earth asteroids to the Moon itself as a…
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InSight Mission Uncovers Mars’ Chaotic Mantle Structure
The InSight Mission: Unveiling the Secrets of Mars The InSight mission, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, has been a pivotal exploration effort aimed at understanding the geology of Mars. Launched in 2018, InSight landed on the Martian surface in November 2018 and has since been instrumental in providing…