The Earth has it, Io has it, and now a third world can be added to list. I’m talking about active volcanism. The Cassini spacecraft finds active icy volcanism reshaping the surface of Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus and spewing water vapor and ice particles into Saturn’s E-ring. What a day for planetary science! read more…

The tiny moon orbiting Saturn named Enceladus has become the third body in the solar system known to have current volcanic activity driven by internal heating, after Earth and Jupiter’s moon Io. The surprising discovery was made after the Cassini spacecraft performed a close flyby of Enceladus on July 14, 2005 and returned the closest…

The discovery of a tenth planet orbiting our Sun was announced today by Dr. Michael E. Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, USA. The planet is at least the size of Pluto and perhaps twice as large. It has been designated 2003UB313 for now while the name suggested by its discoverers…

Burt Rutan and Sir Richard Branson have agreed to form a new company to build new sub-orbital spacecraft for the emerging personal spaceflight industry. “The Spaceship Company” will provide equipment and launch vehicles using technology licensed from Scaled Composites for space tourism operators, including Virgin Galactic. Burt Rutan is president of Scaled Composites, the company…

The European Space Agency’s SMART-1 spacecraft continues to capture images of the Moon in a mission to test new technologies and return new data about our nearest celestial neighbor. In one of the latest images, Hadley Rille, an enormous lava channel over 3.3 billion years old, stretches toward Mount Hadley in the upper right. Geologists…

NASA grounded the remaining space shuttle fleet today after video of yesterday’s Discovery launch revealed that a large piece of insulation foam had fallen off the fuel tank. The debris did not hit the Discovery orbiter but the video footage was a frightening reminder of a similar incident that led to the Columbia disaster in…

NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery successfully launched this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The return to flight comes 2 ½ years after the Space Shuttle disaster claimed the lives of seven astronauts returning to Earth after a successful mission. The liftoff occurred at 10:39 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The return to flight has…

The Cassini spacecraft recently returned a raw image of Saturn dwarfing its tiny moon Mimas. On Monday, July 18, 2005 Cassini was approximately 1,642,603 km (1,020,666 miles) away from Mimas and heading out toward its furthest position away from Saturn during this orbit. Orbit 12 will begin on July 24, 2005 with distant flybys of…

On February 20, 2005, the Cassini spacecraft took a picture of Pandora and Prometheus hard a work shepherding water ice particles and dust into a distinct F-ring unit within Saturn’s larger ring structure. Historically, three main rings were discovered around Saturn, labeled C, B and A from the inside out. Later, fainter rings and structures…

Standing kilometers tall, roaming the desert in crisscrossing paths, vacuuming or depositing dust, and possibly contributing to albedo (surface light reflection) and climate changes, images of dust devils in motion on Mars have been captured by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Spirit captured images of gusts and whirlwinds full of dust marching across Gusev Crater…

The above images and image to the left are the views of Enceladus as the Cassini spacecraft drew closer and closer on Thursday, July 14, 2005. By the time Cassini had passed the small moon it had come to within 172 km (107 miles) of the surface, the closest flyby yet in a 4-year mission…

Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn, may be a world of water ice volcanoes actively resurfacing the surrounding terrain, according to planetary scientists. Surprised by tantalizing evidence of activity, scientists believe Enceladus may be the primary source of material for one of Saturn’s rings. Data from Titan has shown that water ice in the outer…