Planets

NASA's Juno Spacecraft is currently in orbit around Jupiter, and is projected to make a flyby of one of the planet's moons.This Saturday, Juno will come within 1,000 miles close to Io, which will be the first time NASA has had a spacecraft this close to the moon. When the craft comes close to Jupiter's moon, Scientists are hoping to study Io's Volcanoes.“By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations. We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.” Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, TexasNASA is already scheduling another flyby of the moon, ...

NASA's James Webb Telescope recently set its sights towards Uranus, and captured a photo of the ringed planet. In the photo, we can see the inner and outer rings of the planet, as well as the Zeta ring. This is the faint and diffusive ring closest to the planet. The telescope also imaged some of the planet's moons.Sporting a total of 27 moons, Uranus is a world filled with features such as bright storms. In the photo, several bright storms can be seen near and below the southern border of the polar cap. The storms might be due to a combination of seasonal and meteorological effects.The polar cap appears to be more visible when the planet's pole begins to pint toward the sun. Uranus reaches its next solstice in 2028, and astronomers are looking forward to the event. Since the planet...

Scientists have made an exciting discovery about Enceladus, a small moon of Saturn. They found phosphorus, an important element for life, in icy grains that are emitted from the moon. These grains contain a variety of minerals and organic compounds associated with life, including the ingredients for amino acids.Enceladus has a subsurface ocean, and water from this ocean erupts through cracks in the moon's icy crust, creating geysers at its south pole. These geysers release a plume of particles into space, which eventually contribute to Saturn's E ring.During NASA's Cassini mission, which explored Saturn from 2004 to 2017, the spacecraft flew through the plume and E ring multiple times. Scientists discovered that Enceladus' ice grains contain significant amounts of phosphorus salts....