Icy

Stunning Comet Spiral Offers Glimpse of Icy Snowball at Its CoreComet 12P/Pons-Brooks is hiding a strange spiral in its icy heart—and it may tell scientists about the comet’s innardsBy Meghan BartelsAn image of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks and its rotating core taken by Jan Erik Vallestad. Credit: Jan Erik VallestadComet 12P/Pons-Brooks is a shapeshifter: in the summer of 2023 it sported wings like the Millennium Falcon, the iconic Star Wars ship. By autumn it had been dubbed the “Devil comet” for its horned appearance.Now, for…

A massive volcano has been hiding in plain sight on Mars, says new research. Not only is its sheer size noteworthy, but the team believes it might also harbor glacial ice that could be critical for further exploration and Martian settlements.Since our Mars imaging experiments began with Mariner 9 in 1971, we've known that the Red Planet has seen its share of volcanic activity. In fact, in less than a year after it entered orbit, the spacecraft had already detected 20 volcanoes on the planet's surface. While these…

Jupiter's icy moon Europa has long been thought of as one of the most habitable worlds in the Solar System. Now the Juno mission to Jupiter has directly sampled its atmosphere in detail for the first time.The results, published in Nature Astronomy, show that Europa's icy surface produces less oxygen than we thought.There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the possibility of finding microbial life on Europa. Evidence from the Galileo mission has shown that the moon has an ocean below its icy surface containing…

An artist’s conception of Mors-Somnus, a binary duo comprised of a pair of icy asteroids bound by gravity, is shown. UCF researchers recently used the James Webb Space Telescope (also depicted) to analyze their surface compositions for the first time. Credit: Angela Ramirez, UCFResearchers studying the binary asteroid Mors-Somnus in the Kuiper Belt have used the James Webb Space Telescope to gather unique data on trans-Neptunian objects, offering new insights into the formation of Neptune and the outer solar system’s…

Antarctica. Credit: Ceridwen Fraser An increase in pockets of open water in Antarctica's sea ice (polynyas) may mean coastal plants and animals could one day establish on the continent, University of Otago-led research suggests. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, aimed at understanding where open water might…

 “Europa is my favorite body in the solar system,” Quick confesses. But she notes that other ocean worlds also offer promising places to look for signs of life. Those include Enceladus, a small moon of Saturn that, like Europa, has an icy crust with an ocean beneath. Images from the Cassini mission in 2005 revealed that geysers on the south pole of Enceladus spew water and organic molecules into space, feeding Saturn’s outermost ring.  However, Europa is bigger than Enceladus and is more likely to have a surface…

Artist’s rendering of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe science performed by the complex suite of instruments recently added to the Europa Clipper spacecraft will reveal whether Jupiter’s moon Europa has conditions that could support life.With less than nine months remaining in the countdown to launch, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission has passed a major milestone: Its science instruments have been added to the massive spacecraft, which is being assembled at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory…

Mimas is the smallest and innermost of Saturn’s major moons. Its newly discovered young ocean opens new avenues for exploring life’s potential beyond Earth. Credit: Frédéric Durillon, Animea Studio | Observatoire de Paris – PSL, IMCCEResearchers have discovered a global ocean of liquid water beneath the surface of Mimas, one of Saturn’s smallest moons. This discovery, made possible by data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, highlights Mimas as a crucial site for studying the origins of life, providing insights into ocean…

The California Highway Patrol has shared a video of a Tesla Semi electric truck handling a closed icy road. Electric semi trucks are still quite new and there are a lot of naysayers about them. Bill Gates was one of them. He didn’t believe that a battery-electric truck could travel 500 miles, but he was proven wrong by the Tesla Semi. But battery-electric trucks still have a lot to prove. Tesla Semi is working on it by putting in the work. Tesla is operating a fleet of Tesla Semi trucks…

Researchers at the site in Ranis, Germany, had to get around a massive rock to find the human-made tools. Pioneering groups of humans braved icy conditions to settle in northern Europe more than 45,000 years ago, a "huge surprise" that means they could have lived there alongside Neanderthals, scientists said Wednesday. The international team of…