astrogeology Archives

Pluto’s northern Sputnik Planitia glacier (in the western or left side of Pluto’s brightheart) is shown here in a color mosaic made from NASA’s New Horizons imagery. The direction of north is shown on the image. The image is ~ 700 x 350 kilometers across. The red box has been added to show most of the region containing dark features attributed to the wetting of the glacier by liquid nitrogen sourced from a “basal melting” process beneath the glacier. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/SwRI Larger image

New Horizons Finds Evidence Of Recent Liquid On Pluto’s Surface

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[NASA] “Pluto never stops surprising us,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator of New Horizons and lead study author from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “In addition to suggesting […]

Evolution of water abundances and hydrogen isotopic compositions of BMO and crystallizing Bdg and PPv.

Astrogeology

High Solubility Of Water In Post-perovskite And Bridgmanite In The Earth’s Deep Lower Mantle

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[physics.geo-ph] Water in the Earth’s mantle induces melting, giving rise to strong chemical heterogeneity, and alters its rheological and transport properties, which are keys to understanding seismic-wave speeds anomalies, convective […]

ESCAPE addresses the factor of >10 differences in predicted atmospheric mass loss rates by directly measuring both the present-day EUV irradiance from specific FGKM stars and the stellar EUV evolution as a function of mass.

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

ESCAPE: A Small Explorer Mission To Study The Stellar Drivers Of Exoplanet Evolution

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] The long-term stability of exoplanetary atmospheres depends critically on the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) photon and high-energy particle fluxes from the host star, which are poorly constrained.

Map of N × ρ for H2O in 81P on March 20 with MRS

Comets and Asteroids

A JWST Study of Stardust. I. Infrared Spectroscopy of Comet 81P/Wild 2 and Overall Composition

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] We report observations of comet 81P/Wild 2, target of the Stardust sample return mission, on UT 2023 March 20 and 24 at a heliocentric distance (rH) of 1.85 au […]

Mars

A Consolidated Mössbauer Spectrum For Undisturbed Soils From Gusev Crater, Mars

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[Springer Nature] Mössbauer analyses from MIMOS II data collected on Mars provided breakthrough insights into iron mineralogy of the planet’s surface. [Life] Resulting from limited measurement time, science operations were […]

(a) Schematic of the BiBlade during its four stages of sample collection -- The Planetary Science Journal

Comets and Asteroids

Gelato: A Mission Concept for Comet Surface Sample Return

by Keith CowingAugust 3, 2026August 3, 2026

[The Planetary Science Journal] Understanding the role of comets in solar system formation and evolution has continued to be a driving question in planetary science. It is believed that comets […]

Mars

Mars Curiosity Blog Sols 4961-4967: Approaching a Break in the Rock Record?

by Keith CowingAugust 2, 2026August 2, 2026

[NASA JPL] Earth planning date: Friday, July 24, 2026

Mars

Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers A Field Of Honeycomb Textures

by Keith CowingJuly 29, 2026July 29, 2026

[NASA] Mission scientists have never seen so many of the many-sided geologic features in one place on the Red Planet.

All condensates linked to sulphur-poor atmospheric types A, B, C, and α at all temperatures investigated in this work.

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets

SCoRE: The Surface Composition Of Rocky Exoplanets

by Keith CowingJuly 29, 2026July 29, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] Context. The crust composition of rocky exoplanets with a substantial atmosphere can not be observed directly. However, recent developments are starting to allow for the observation and characterisation of […]