Planetary Science

A new Kuiper Belt object, 2023 KQ14, has a stable orbit that challenges the theory of a hidden ninth planet influencing the outer Solar System.

New research suggests that frequent cosmic impacts on early Earth fractured its crust, creating permeable regions that facilitated fluid circulation and prebiotic chemistry.

A compact X-ray telescope developed by Tokyo Metropolitan University could create the first complete chemical map of the Moon, revealing its formation and evolution.

The James Webb Space Telescope has solved the mystery of Saturn's changing rotation rate, attributing it to atmospheric winds driven by the planet's aurora.

NASA's Curiosity rover found that hematite crystals in Mars's Gale Crater record ancient climate changes, indicating long periods of warm, potentially habitable groundwater.

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a gas giant exoplanet, WASP-94A b, where rock clouds form in the morning and vanish by night.

New research indicates that supermassive black holes can render exoplanets uninhabitable by stripping away atmospheres and depleting ozone, even at vast distances.

New data from NASA's Juno spacecraft suggests Io's thermal output is significantly higher than previously estimated, potentially by an order of magnitude.

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to analyze the super-Earth LHS 3844 b, finding it to be a dark, airless, rocky planet with a surface composition similar to basalt or Earth's mantle, likely shaped by space weathering.