Jupiter News

June 20, 2025

Top Headlines

Webb Reveals the Origin of the Ultra-Hot Exoplanet WASP-121b

June 2, 2025 — Tracing the origin of an ultra-hot exoplanet: The chemical composition of WASP-121b suggests that it formed in a cool zone of its natal disc, comparable to the region of gas and ice giants in our Solar System. Methane indicates unexpected ...

Ongoing Surface Modification on Jupiter's Moon Europa Uncovered

May 28, 2025 — A series of experiments support spectral data recently collected by the James Webb Space Telescope that found evidence that the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is constantly changing. Europa's surface ice is crystallizing at different rates in ...

Why Are Some Rocks on the Moon Highly Magnetic?

May 23, 2025 — Scientists may have solved the mystery of why the moon shows ancient signs of magnetism although it has no magnetic field today. An impact, such as from a large asteroid, could have generated a cloud of ionized particles that briefly enveloped the ...

Ultraviolet Data from NASA's Europa Clipper Mission

May 16, 2025 — The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft has successfully completed its initial commissioning following the October 14, 2024, launch. Scheduled to arrive in the Jovian system in 2030, the spacecraft will orbit ...

Innovative Approaches Advance Search for Ice on the Moon

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists and space explorers have been on the hunt to determine where and how much ice is present on the Moon. Water ice would be an important resource at a future lunar base, as it could be used to support humans or be broken down to hydrogen and ...

On Jupiter, It's Mushballs All the Way Down

Apr. 15, 2025 — Observations of Jupiter show that ammonia is unevenly distributed in the upper atmosphere, against expectations of uniform mixing. Scientists found evidence for a complicated but apparently real process associated with fierce lightning storms: ...

Solar Cells Made of Moon Dust Could Power Future Space Exploration

Apr. 3, 2025 — The same dirt that clings to astronauts' boots may one day keep their lights on. Researchers created solar cells made out of simulated Moon dust. The cells convert sunlight into energy efficiently, withstand radiation damage, and mitigate the need ...

Beyond Our Solar System: Scientists Identify a New Exoplanet Candidate

Mar. 4, 2025 — The discovery of new exoplanets can help scientists understand how planets form and ...

Lunar Trailblazer Blasts Off to Map Water on the Moon

Feb. 28, 2025 — On Wednesday 26 February, a thermal imaging camera blasted off to the Moon as part of NASA's Lunar Trailblazer mission. This aims to map sources of water on the Moon to shed light on the lunar water cycle and to guide future robotic and human ...

Deposits Found on a Nearby Asteroid Point to Salty Water in the Outer Solar System

Feb. 17, 2025 — Asteroids that orbit close to the Earth inevitably cause us some anxiety due to the even remote possibility of a collision. But their proximity also offers ample opportunities to learn more about the ...

Tidal Energy Measurements Help Scientists Understand Titan's Composition, Orbital History

Feb. 13, 2025 — Scientists are studying Saturn's moon Titan to assess its tidal dissipation rate, the energy lost as it orbits the ringed planet with its massive gravitational force. Understanding tidal dissipation ...

Moon Is Not as 'Geologically Dead' as Previously Thought

Jan. 29, 2025 — Scientists developed advanced dating methods to track geological changes on the far side of the moon and found evidence of relatively recent ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:16am EDT

Astronomers Just Found a Giant Planet That Shouldn’t Exist

June 11, 2025 — Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, something they believed wasn t even possible. The planet, TOI-6894b, is about the size of Saturn but orbits a star just a ...

Sand Clouds and Moon Nurseries: Webb’s Dazzling Exoplanet Reveal

June 10, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured breathtakingly detailed images of two giant exoplanets orbiting a distant sun-like star. These observations revealed sand-like silicate ...

Planets May Start Forming Before Their Stars Are Even Done

June 9, 2025 — Planets may begin forming much earlier than scientists once believed during the final stages of a star s birth, not afterward. This bold new model, backed by simulations from researchers at SwRI, ...

Follow the Water: Searching for a Lunar Oasis

Jan. 28, 2025 — As humankind imagines living off-planet -- on the moon, Mars and beyond -- the question of how to sustain life revolves around the physical necessities of oxygen, food and water. We know there is ...

Not All Hot Jupiters Orbit Solo

Jan. 15, 2025 — Hot Jupiters are giant planets initially known to orbit alone close to their star. During their migration towards their star, these planets were thought to accrete or eject any other planets present. ...

Pluto-Charon Formation Scenario Mimics Earth-Moon System

Jan. 7, 2025 — A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...

Citizen Science Reveals That Jupiter's Colorful Clouds Are Not Made of Ammonia Ice

Jan. 6, 2025 — Collaborative work by amateur and professional astronomers has helped to resolve a long-standing misunderstanding about the composition of Jupiter's ...

Mysteries of Icy Ocean Worlds

Dec. 20, 2024 — A study introduces a novel thermodynamic concept called the 'centotectic' and investigates the stability of liquids in extreme conditions -- critical information for determining the habitability of ...

A 'Remelting' of Lunar Surface Adds a Wrinkle to Mystery of Moon's True Age

Dec. 18, 2024 — Scientists propose a 'remelting' of the Moon's surface 4.35 billion years ago due to the tidal pull of Earth causing widespread geological upheaval and intense ...

Does the Exoplanet Trappist-1 B Have an Atmosphere After All?

Dec. 16, 2024 — Recent measurements with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cast doubt on the current understanding of the exoplanet Trappist-1 b's nature. Until now, it was assumed to be a dark rocky planet ...

Heart of Jovian Moon's Volcanic Rage

Dec. 13, 2024 — A new study points to why, and how, Io became the most volcanic body in the solar ...

NASA's Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

Dec. 9, 2024 — A NASA Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) obtains long-term baseline observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in order to understand ...

Researchers Use Data from Citizen Scientists to Uncover the Mysteries of a Blue Low-Latitude Aurora

Dec. 5, 2024 — Colorful auroras appeared around Japan's Honshu and Hokkaido islands on May 11, 2024, sparked by an intense magnetic storm. Usually, auroras observed at low latitudes appear red due to the ...

Magnetic Tornado Is Stirring Up the Haze at Jupiter's Poles

Nov. 26, 2024 — Dark ovals in Jupiter's polar haze, visible only at UV wavelengths, were first noticed 25 years ago, then ignored. A new study shows that these dark UV ovals are common, appearing at the south ...

Uranus's Swaying Moons Will Help Spacecraft Seek out Hidden Oceans

Nov. 25, 2024 — A new computer model can be used to detect and measure interior oceans on the ice covered moons of Uranus. The model works by analyzing orbital wobbles that would be visible from a passing ...

A Clue to What Lies Beneath the Bland Surfaces of Uranus and Neptune

Nov. 25, 2024 — When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune 40 years ago, astronomers were surprised that it detected no global dipole magnetic fields, like Earth's. The explanation: the ice giants are layered ...

Saturn's Moon Titan Has Insulating Methane-Rich Crust Up to Six Miles Thick

Oct. 25, 2024 — A new study has revealed that methane gas may be trapped within the icy surface of Saturn's moon Titan, forming a distinct crust up to six miles thick, which warms the underlying ice shell and ...

NASA, NOAA: Sun Reaches Maximum Phase in 11-Year Solar Cycle

Oct. 15, 2024 — Experts have announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year. Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period ...

Liftoff! NASA's Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter

Oct. 14, 2024 — NASA's Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The largest ...

Asteroid Ceres Is a Former Ocean World That Slowly Formed Into a Giant, Murky Icy Orb

Sep. 27, 2024 — A crater-rich dwarf planet named Ceres located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter was long thought to be composed of a materials mixture not dominated by water ice. ...

This Rocky Planet Around a White Dwarf Resembles Earth -- 8 Billion Years from Now

Sep. 26, 2024 — A 2020 microlensing event was caused by a planetary system with an Earth-like planet and brown dwarf. The star type was uncertain. The team has determined that the star is a white dwarf, a system ...

Volcanoes May Help Reveal Interior Heat on Jupiter Moon

Sep. 19, 2024 — By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter's moon Io -- the most volcanically active location in the solar system -- astronomers have been able to study a fundamental process in planetary ...

Gargantuan Black Hole Jets Are Biggest Seen Yet

Sep. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to ...

Gigantic Asteroid Impact Shifted the Axis of Solar System's Biggest Moon

Sep. 3, 2024 — Around 4 billion years ago, an asteroid hit the Jupiter moon Ganymede. Now, a researcher realized that the Solar System's biggest moon's axis has shifted as a result of the impact, which ...

Scientists Pin Down the Origins of the Moon's Tenuous Atmosphere

Aug. 2, 2024 — Scientists say they have identified the main process that formed the moon's atmosphere and continues to sustain it today. The team reports that the lunar atmosphere is primarily a product of ...

Key to Rapid Planet Formation

Aug. 1, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new model to explain the formation of giant planets such as Jupiter, which furnishes deeper insights into the processes of planet formation and could expand our ...

Images of Nearest 'Super-Jupiter' Open a New Window to Exoplanet Research

July 24, 2024 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers imaged a new exoplanet that orbits a star in the nearby triple system Epsilon Indi. The planet is a cold super-Jupiter exhibiting a ...

Life Signs Could Survive Near Surfaces of Enceladus and Europa

July 21, 2024 — Europa and Enceladus, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, have evidence of oceans beneath their crusts. A NASA experiment suggests -- if these oceans support life -- signatures of that life ...

Astronomers Spot a 'Highly Eccentric' Planet on Its Way to Becoming a Hot Jupiter

July 17, 2024 — The newly discovered planet TIC 241249530 b has the most highly elliptical, or eccentric, orbit of any known planet. It appears to be a juvenile planet that is in the midst of becoming a hot Jupiter, ...

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Not the Same One Cassini Observed in 1600s

June 19, 2024 — Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot has persisted for at least 190 years and is likely a different spot from the one observed by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1665, a new study ...