Comet Siding Spring Animation

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted a recent impact crater that will remain a distinctive blemish for decades to come. Finding new craters is not uncommon with six satellites currently orbiting the Red Planet.

A huge deposit of porous rock straddling the Martian equator likely formed as a result of explosive volcanoes erupting three billion years ago that were powered by climate-changing volatile gases trapped in the red planet’s interior

Planetary scientists have discovered pieces of opal in a meteorite found in Antarctica, a result that demonstrates that meteorites delivered water ice to asteroids early in the history of the solar system. Opal, familiar on Earth as a precious stone used in jewellery, is made up of silica (the major component of sand) with up to 30 percent water in its structure.