NASA plans to send a new, light-sensitive camera to explore the moon’s most shadowed regions. ShadowCam will look for evidence of water ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the moon.
Lunar areas that never receive sunlight – frigid craters and mountain shadows – could conceal a treasure trove of water ice, especially near the poles.
A sacred site built in southwest Colorado around 800 years ago hints that the ancestral Pueblo people might have used geometry.
The analysis of the Sun Temple at Mesa Verde National Park offers the first hard evidence that a prehistoric North American society possibly employed such figures in construction.
After 4 billion years, the dwarf planet Ceres is still carrying a surprising amount of water weight — as much as 30 percent.
The finding, which was published in the Jan. 6 edition of the journal Science, is consistent with earlier models, and provides valuable clues to how Ceres formed.
NASA’s Discovery Program has selected two projects, both with Arizona ties, to delve into the ancient history of the solar system.
One craft, Psyche, will head to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The other, Lucy, will explore six asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter. Scientists believe that the targets embody different aspects of early solar system history.
Work in the Chilean desert by Arizona State University scientists has reopened debate regarding the biological origins of Martian silica fragments found in 2007 — and strengthened the case for life on Mars billions of years ago.
NASA’s Spirit rover churned up the opaline silica deposits as it explored the Columbia Hills area of Mars’s Gusev Crater.