In 1665, astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini observed a massive storm raging on Jupiter. It became known as the Great Red Spot, a swirling oval of clouds that’s almost twice as wide as Earth. New research, however, suggests that the red-hued feature spotted by Cassini is not the same storm we see today.
The surface of Venus is littered with thousands of volcanoes, some of which may still be active until today. A fresh look at 30-year-old radar images captured by the Magellan spacecraft revealed new lava flows on Venus, suggesting that the planet was volcanically active between 1990 to 1992.
On September 29, 2022, NASA’s Juno spacecraft made its closest flyby of Europa, coming to within 220 miles (355 kilometers) of the Jovian moon’s frozen surface. The closeup view of Europa revealed incredible details of the moon’s chaotic terrain, which suggest that its icy crust is not where it used to be. The images…
Jostling on the fault lines of Enceladus’ frozen crust may be responsible for the plumes of icy material spewing from the moon’s watery underbelly, according to a team of researchers that recently modeled the motion.
Jupiter and its moons are a diverse and dynamic subdivision of our solar system’s neighborhood, one that NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been visiting since 2016. Besides hosting the system’s largest planet, at over 300 times the mass of our own planet, the Jovian system includes 95 known moons, the largest of which are…
Two recent flybys of Jupiter’s moon Io by NASA’s Juno spacecraft revealed a couple of stunning surprises: a remarkably steep mountain and islands in the middle of a burbling lava lake. The new findings were announced yesterday by Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of the Juno mission, at the European Geophysical…
Icy moons like Europa and Enceladus are exciting venues for the prospect of life beyond Earth, because they are thought to contain oceans of water beneath their frigid surfaces.
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa produces plenty of oxygen every day, according to new findings based on data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The moon has long been of interest to astrobiologists because of the possibility that life could exist in its subsurface ocean.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured new images of Jupiter’s moon Io during its latest flyby, coming within an eerily close distance of the most volcanically active world in the solar system for a second time in less than two months. The close encounter also shows what appears to be a pair of plumes erupting from the…