geology Archives

Called the “Genesis Rock,” this lunar sample of unbrecciated anorthosite collected during the Apollo 15 mission was thought to be a piece of the moon’s primordial crust. In a paper published online Feb. 17 in Nature Geoscience, a University of Michigan researcher and his colleagues report that traces of water were found in the rock. Photo courtesy of NASA/Johnson Space Center.

Astrogeology, Away Teams & Field Reports, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Meteorites & Asteroids, Reports, Roadmaps, & Plans, Sample Return, Status Report

Determinative Mineralogy: An essential component of Planetary Exploration – Decadal White Paper of the Extraterrestrial Mineralogy Panel

by Keith CowingNovember 9, 2001June 23, 2024

INTRODUCTION Our existing knowledge of extraterrestrial mineralogy has been gained largely from analyses of returned or collected samples — returned samples and collected meteorites from the Moon, meteorites from Mars, […]

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Press Release

New Images Suggest Present-Day Sources of Liquid Water on Mars

by Keith CowingJune 22, 2000April 13, 2024

In what could turn out to be a landmark discovery in the history of Mars exploration, imaging scientists using data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have recently observed features […]