Gateway into Inner Solar System Discovered, Finding May Alter Fundamental Understanding of Comet Evolution A new study may fundamentally alter our understanding of how comets arrive from the outskirts of the solar system and are funneled to the inner solar system coming closer to Earth.  At the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva, planetary scientist Dr. Jordan Steckloff […]

Could Venus have been habitable? Venus may have been a temperate planet hosting liquid water for 2-3 billion years, until a dramatic transformation starting over 700 million years ago resurfaced around 80% of the planet. A study presented today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 by Michael Way of The Goddard Institute for Space Science […]

Drones probe terrestrial dust devils to better understand the atmosphere of Mars Dust devils, small dusty whirlwinds, have been studied for decades. But, says Brian Jackson, an associate professor in the Department of Physics at Boise State University, the ability of dust devils to lift dust into the atmosphere remains murky. “When we compare theoretical […]

Studies of the cloud-tops of Venus by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft show striking variety in wind speeds year-on-year and between the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres. The first fine-scale observations of cloud-top temperatures have also revealed a tendency for clouds to converge towards the equator at night, in contrast to poleward circulation seen previously in daytime […]

Venus Takes Centre Stage in October 2020 Observation Campaign Next October, Venus will be the focus of an international campaign of coordinated observations involving two space agencies, three missions and multiple ground-based telescopes and planetary scientists around the world. The collaboration aims to shed new light on the thick and complex atmosphere of Venus. Plans […]

Thursday 19th September, 12:15-13:15 CEST (10:15-11:15 UTC / 06:15-07:15 EDT)Akatsuki mission results, 2020 Coordinated Venus Observations and science at Venus Masato Nakamura (ISAS/JAXA) – Akatsuki mission update Takeshi Horinouchi (Hokkaido University) – Cloud-top wind observations by Akatsuki Takeshi Imamura (University of Tokyo) – Infrared observations at Venusian cloud tops Yeon Joo Lee (Technical University of […]

EPSC 2020 in the Heart of Granada The European Planetary Science Congress 2020 will take place in Granada, Spain from 27 September – 2 October 2020.. Many thanks to the Local Organising Committee for sharing this video with us. We hope to see you there!

Comet’s collapsing cliffs and bouncing boulders  Scientists analysing the treasure trove of images taken by ESA’s Rosetta mission have turned up more evidence for curious bouncing boulders and dramatic cliff collapses. Rosetta operated at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between August 2014 and September 2016, collecting data on the comet’s dust, gas and plasma environment, its surface characteristics […]

AIDA collaboration highlights case for planetary defence Surprising results from recent asteroid missions have highlighted the importance of testing planetary defence strategies in space, according to scientists participating in the joint ESA/NASA Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. The unexpectedly large crater on asteroid Ryugu created by the JAXA Hayabysa2 impactor, together with the sand-like […]

Citizen science starts to reveal Lucy mission target, Orus Observations made with a telescope designed for citizen science has taken the first step in providing detailed information on a target asteroid for NASA’s Lucy mission. The findings were presented today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva by Dr Franck Marchis of the SETI […]