3 October 2025
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Planetary Science

News

Opportunity rover snaps photo of Martian dust devil

5 April 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has captured a dust devil spinning across the barren floor of Endeavour Crater, an impact basin the robot has explored since 2011 in the mission’s long-lived second act.

News

InSight Mars probe escapes cancellation, reset for 2018

10 March 2016 Stephen Clark

The InSight Mars lander has won a reprieve from NASA’s top managers after persistent problems with one of the probe’s science instruments caused the mission to miss a narrow launch window planned for this month.

News

Fate of NASA’s InSight Mars mission to be decided soon

8 March 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA is close to deciding whether to spend an extra $150 million to send the InSight lander to Mars in 2018 or cancel the mission after an instrument problem made the spacecraft miss a launch opportunity this year, with a verdict on the project’s future expected within weeks, officials said.

News

Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft breaks solar power distance record

24 January 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Juno spacecraft bound for a rendezvous with Jupiter in July has set a record as the most distant solar-powered space probe ever flown.

News

European Mars probe arrives at launch site

3 January 2016 Stephen Clark

Three heavy-duty Antonov cargo planes flew components of Europe’s ExoMars orbiter and lander from Italy to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazkhastan last week, setting up for a March 14 launch toward the red planet.

News

Launch of NASA’s next Mars mission delayed until at least 2018

28 December 2015 Stephen Clark

Persistent problems with a seismometer instrument package will keep NASA’s InSight Mars lander from departing for the red planet during a March launch period, and officials said they will consider shelving the $675 million project if the issues prove too costly to fix.

News

Japanese probe fires rockets to steer into orbit at Venus

7 December 2015 Stephen Clark

Five years after missing a shot to enter orbit at Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft completed a critical rocket burn early Monday in a bid to salvage the research mission and become the only space probe operating around Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.

News

Diverse destinations considered for new interplanetary probe

12 April 2015 Stephen Clark

Science teams from across the United States have submitted 28 proposals for missions to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, touch the asteroid-like satellites orbiting Mars, visit unseen worlds and hunt for objects that could strike Earth one day.

News

Curiosity’s Martian nitrogen find raises possibility of ancient life

31 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Nitrogen, in the form of nitric oxide (one nitrogen atom and one oxygen atom), has been detected for the first time on the surface of Mars by a team of researchers using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover, adding to the growing speculation that life could have once flourished on ancient Mars.

News

Japanese craft to get second chance after missing Venus in 2010

9 February 2015 Stephen Clark

Five years after a balky valve kept it from entering orbit around Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki space probe is again approaching the sweltering planet for another shot at completing its science mission in December.

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News Headlines

  • Nova outburst in Centaurus
    24 September 2025
  • Astronomy Now relaunches digital platform
    12 September 2025
  • Potentially habitable planet TRAPPIST-1e displays tentative evidence for an atmosphere
    8 September 2025
  • Ten-Year Lease Extension Confirmed at Herstmonceux Observatory
    18 August 2025
  • Graphic showing the close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus with other stars and contellations marked on a dark sky, above a horizon with trees in silhouette.
    Venus and Jupiter’s bright morning conjunction
    10 August 2025
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