One of the final three candidate landing sites for the Mars 2020 mission was northeast Syrtis, along with Gusev Crater/Columbia Hills and the eventual landing site for the Perseverance rover, […]
As stars evolve, they undergo significant changes in their physical properties, which can have a profound impact on the planets orbiting them.
The excess abundance of highly siderophile elements (HSEs), as inferred for the terrestrial planets and the Moon, is thought to record a `late veneer’ of impacts after the giant impact […]
![[L] Close-up of a sample particle from asteroid Bennu. Credit NASA/Scott Eckley [R] The same particle analyzed with X-ray computed tomography scanning. This specimen shows the most common types of crack networks observed in Bennu samples. One has an extensive and connect framework of curved cracks, whereas the other has sparse, straight and flat fractures. Credit NASA/Scott Eckley](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Asteroid-Bennus-rugged-surface.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
In one of the biggest surprises of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, its target asteroid, Bennu, turned out to be a jagged, rugged world covered in large boulders, with few of the […]
Comet K1, whose full name is Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) – not to be confused with interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS – was not the original target of a recent Hubble study. […]
Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical and chemical conditions occurring during […]
The spatial distribution of the chemical reservoirs in protoplanetary disks is key to elucidate the composition of planets, especially habitable ones. However, the partitioning of the main elements among the […]
Competing processes shape Europa’s surface: geological activity replenishes material through resurfacing, while bombardment by charged particles alters surface chemical composition. Each process leaves distinct spectral signatures.
The exoALMA Large Program has revealed a wealth of substructures in the dust and molecular line emission of several protoplanetary discs, suggesting that planet formation may unfold within highly dynamic […]
Samples from the asteroid Ryugu collected and returned to Earth by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission contain all five nitrogenous bases—adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil—that make up nucleic acids, […]
