Rotational Motion of Ceres
Ceres, the first asteroid to be discovered, is by far the largest and most massive body in the main asteroid belt. NASA's Dawn Mission will be the first to reach Ceres and one of its main goals is to understand its thermal evolution and current state.

Atmospheric Modeling of Martian Methane Plumes: The Debate Continues
From recent observations, it has been suggested that there is evidence for the periodic (seasonal) release of methane occur from discrete surface locations on Mars, although the exact location and mechanism of release is still unknown.

Topography of Titan's Arctic Lake District: Implications for Subsurface Liquid Alkane Flow
By comparing the calibration of various overlapping Titan RADAR imagery, scientists on the Cassini RADAR instrument team were able to test a new model which is better able to estimate surface heights, elevations and subsurface phenomena within Titan's Arc

Numerical Simulations of Mantle Plumes on Venus: Implications for Mantle Viscosity, Water Content and Melting
Venus is a planet with striking surface characteristics, including mantle plumes, which are hot, roughly cylindrical structures that rise from deep in the mantle of the planet.

NASA's GALEX Telescope Confirms Nature of Dark Energy
Dark energy is in a tug-of-war with gravity.

Oxygen Isotope Variation in Meteorite Provides Insight Into Planet Formation
NASA scientists conducted research on a meteorite and have provided new evidence that the inner planets formed from materials spread far and wide in the early solar system.

Stardust-NExT Mission Delivers Striking Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet Tempel 1
The spacecraft made its closest approach to Comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet.

Regional Lunar Surface Temperatures, Albedos, and Thermophysical Properties from LRO's Diviner Instrument
As LRO is pioneering NASA's efforts to renew exploration of the Moon, Diviner's temperature maps can be used to determine the thermal and physical properties of the Moon's surface, and therefore better characterize and assess the safety of landing sites.

Cassini Discovers Saturn to Vary its Energy Output
Saturn is a changeable world that pumps out surprisingly variable amounts of heat from season to season and year to year, a new study has found.

WISE Captures Key Images that will help EPOXI Mission's Comet Encounter
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, caught a glimpse of the comet that the NASA's EPOXI mission will visit on November 4, 2010. The WISE observation will help the EPOXI team put together a large-scale picture of the comet.

Spring Weather Forecast on Titan: Sunshine with Patchy Clouds
Scientists using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have created the first long-term study of the weather on Saturn's moon Titan.

Giant Ultraviolet Rings Found in Resurrected Galaxies
On August 11, 2010, astronomers using JPL's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) announced the discovery of huge ultraviolet light-emitting rings surrounding elliptical galaxies.

Propeller Gaps in Saturn's Rings Reveal Clues of Disk Formation
Scientists using NASA's Cassini spacecraft at Saturn have stalked a new class of moons in the rings of Saturn that create distinctive propeller-shaped gaps in ring material.

Man-Made Aurora Helps Predict Space Weather
As the ultraviolet light from the 'Lyman-Birge-Hopfield' (LBH) band emission is used by NASA, the US Department of Defense and the European Space Agency can better understand physical and chemical processes occurring in our upper atmosphere.

WISE Collection Grows
May 2010: NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), is building up a large collection of cosmic specimens- everything from distant galaxies to "failed" stars, called brown dwarfs, to asteroids and comets.

Venus Lives (Geologically Speaking)
April 2010: For the first time, the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission has detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the surface of Venus

EPOXI: Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft Extended Mission
The EPOXI mission may help define how the Solar System originated and how it is evolving.

Laboratory & Modeling Studies to Quantify Electron Penetration into and Charging of Icy Surfaces of Moons of Giant Planets
Potential future outer planet missions need a comprehensive understanding of radiation processing of icy surfaces in order to define instrument needs.

Venus Flagship Mission Study: Exploring a World of Contrasts
Over the past year NASA has funded a mission concept study to better understand the science goals and technology requirements for a future Venus Flagship-class mission.

Simulation of Chemistry Induced by Hypervelocity Impacts on Icy Moons Surfaces
For some icy satellites, scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center propose that meteorite impacts could be a source for organic synthesis in ices.

The Mini Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) on the Chandraayan-1 Mission to the Moon
The Mini Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) is a lightweight radar imaging instrument currently studying the Moon. Mini-SAR uses a different analytical approach to look for ice.

Innovative Approaches to Future Outer Planet Exploration -- Destination: Ganymede
Gaining insight into the composition and volatile inventory of Jupiter and its moons will shed light on how planets and satellites accrete and evolve.

Titan's Winter Polar Vortex Structure Revealed By Chemical Tracers
Scientists analyzed two years of observations from Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer to determine cross sections of five independent chemical tracers.

Spectroscopic Confirmation of an Extreme Starburst at Redshift 4.547
The Origin of Stars and Galaxies: Baby Boomer Galaxy Found. Nicknamed "Baby Boom," the galaxy is churning out an average of up to 4,000 stars per year, more than 100 times the number produced in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 Begins Mapping Oceans
Less than a month after launch, the NASA-French space agency Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 oceanography satellite has produced its first complete maps of global ocean surface topography, surface wave height and wind speed.

Overview of Observations Made During the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) Spacecraft's Flyby of Mercury
Launched in August 2004, MESSENGER is midway through a complex interplanetary cruise phase that involves six planetary flybys.

The Exotic Atmospheres of Hot Jupiter-like Planets
Defining Giant Hot Jupiter-like Exoplanets as an Astronomical Class of Objects

Exploring Titan's Surface of Ice and Organics
Titan has been long known to be a photochemical factory.

Earthshine: Earth's Spectra, Albedo, Clouds, Climate, and the Search for Earth-Like Exoplanets
Earth-like planets around distant stars may be too far away to be reached by spacecraft but scientists could still investigate whether they harbor life.

Origins of Planetary Systems and the Development of Prebiotic Conditions
Scientists at NASA's JPL brought together to develop new interdisciplinary tools for interpreting observations of protostellar disks returned by space telescopes such as Spitzer and Hubble.

Formation of Nitrogen Atmosphere On Titan


Why does Titan, a moon of Saturn, possess a large nitrogen atmosphere, when the only other planetary body in our Solar System where vast quantities of nitrogen are observed is our own planet Earth?

Near-infrared Spectra of Laboratory Water-Methane (H2O-CH4) Ice Mixtures
Distinguishing methane ice from water ice and their combination using infrared spectroscopy.

Strain at Radially Fractured Centers (RFCs) on Venus
Fractures which extend for very large distances are the result of magma intrusions (dikes) below the surface.

Single-Molecule Resolution of Optical Microscope
Researchers at JPL have developed the first optical nanoscope, the Flourescence Apertureless Near-field Scanning Optical Microscope (FANSOM).

Updates on High-Dispersion Spectroscopy, Radial Velocity and the Planet Search Program
The California-Carnegie team will be able to study the radial velocity of stars with more precision than ever before.

Low Frequency Plasma Oscillations Observed at Mars During 2003 Solar Storms
Because of Mars's lack of an intrinsic global magnetic field, the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere.

Cassini Magnetometer Finds an Atmosphere on Saturn's Moon Enceladus
The Cassini spacecraft's two close flybys of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus have revealed that the moon has a significant atmosphere.

Habitability in High Radiation Environments: The Case for Gaia at Europa
Icy satellites with significant heat, irradiation and subsurface water sources may provide common abodes for life.

To Sea or Not to Sea: Titan's Paradigm Malfunction
A single paradigm that had been developed to study the Saturnian system and its largest moon, Titan, has been shaken to its core.

Spectral Mapping of Phoebe Reveals Water and Carbon Dioxide-Rich Composition on Surface
The existence of carbon dioxide strongly suggests that Phoebe did not originate in the asteroid belt.

Migration of Phyllosilicates Through the Solar Nebula Could Explain Water-rich Planetary Formation
Shock waves through icy parts of the solar nebula may be the mechanism that enriched ancient meteorites (called chondrites) with water.

Scientists Have Detected Sunlight's Gentle Nudge on Asteroids
The team's precise ranging revealed that Golevka was 15 kilometers further away than had been predicted by considering gravitational forces alone.

Evidence of Cold-based Glaciers in the Dry Valleys of Antartica Could Help Scientists
Evidence of cold-based glaciers in the dry valleys of antartica could help scientists study the terrain of the Martian landscape.