The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water. Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists and space enthusiasts alike. NASA has opened a new chapter in our understanding of the moon. Preliminary data from the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates that the mission su...

The Cassini spacecraft has weathered the Monday, Nov. 2, flyby of Saturn`s moon Enceladus in good health and has been sending images and data of the encounter back to Earth. Cassini had approached Enceladus more closely before, but this passage took the spacecraft on its deepest plunge yet through the heart of the plume shooting out from the south polar region. Scientists are eagerly sifting throu...

The Moon is a big sponge that absorbs electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. These particles interact with the oxygen present in some dust grains on the lunar surface, producing water. This discovery, made by the ESA-ISRO instrument SARA onboard the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, confirms how water is likely being created on the lunar surface. It also gives scientists an ingenio...

NASA has made a series of critical strides toward the development of new nuclear reactors the size of a trash can that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars. Three recent tests at different NASA centers and a national lab have successfully demonstrated key technologies required for compact fission-based nuclear power plants for human settlements on other worlds. NASA`s Marshall Space Fli...

The discovery of large quantities of water on the moon will have very significant implications for human space exploration, according to Kingston University space expert Dr Chris Welch. The findings by NASA, which have been hitting the headlines today, were reportedly made after researchers examined data from three separate missions to the moon. Dr Welch, astronautics and space systems expert at K...

NASA`s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon, has returned its first data. One of the seven instruments aboard, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, is making the first global survey of the temperature of the lunar surface while the spacecraft orbits some 31 miles above the moon. Diviner has obtained enough data already to characterize m...

Since its discovery by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1655, Saturn`s most massive moon, Titan, has been known as a place of mystery and intrigue. The large, cloud-enshrouded moon is such a scientific enigma that for the past five years, it has been targeted by NASAs Cassini spacecraft with more than 60 probing flybys. One of its latest findings could be a valuable asset to future generatio...

A discovery about the moon made in the 1960s is helping researchers unlock secrets about Earth`s oceans today. By applying a method of calculating gravity that was first developed for the moon to data from NASA`s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, JPL researchers have found a way to measure the pressure at the bottom of the ocean. Just as knowing atmospheric pressure allows m...

A new and likely controversial paper has just been published online in Nature Geoscience by LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology Chair Patrick Hesp and United States Geological Survey scientist David Rubin. The paper, "Multiple origins of linear dunes on Earth and Titan," examines a possible new mechanism for the development of very large linear dunes formed on the surface of Tit...

For all its similarities to Earth—clouds that pour rain (albeit liquid methane not liquid water) onto the surface producing lakes and rivers, vast dune fields in desert-like regions, plus a smoggy orange atmosphere that looks like Los Angeles`s during fire season—Saturn`s largest moon, Titan, is generally "a very bland place, weatherwise," says Mike Brown of the California In...