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The Tibet ASγ experiment, a China-Japan joint research project on cosmic-ray observation, has discovered ultra-high-energy diffuse gamma rays from the Milky Way galaxy. The highest energy detected is estimated to be unprecedentedly high, nearly 1 Peta electronvolts (PeV, or one million billion eV).

Surprisingly, these gamma rays do not point back to known high-energy gamma-ray sources, but are spread out across the Milky Way (see Figure 1).

Scientists believe these gamma rays are produced by the nuclear interaction between cosmic rays escaping from the most powerful galactic sources (“PeVatrons”) and interstellar gas in the Milky Way galaxy. This observational evidence marks an important milestone in revealing the origin of cosmic rays, which has puzzled mankind for more than a century.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured a new aurora feature on Jupiter that is characterized by faint ring-shaped emissions that expand rapidly over time. These auroral emissions are believed to be triggered by charged particles coming from the edge of the planet’s magnetosphere.

NASA’s Juno mission has detected new auroral emissions on Jupiter which appear to ripple over the planet’s poles.

The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) on the Juno spacecraft captured this glowing phenomenon, which is characterized by faint ring-shaped emissions that expand rapidly over time at speeds between 2 and 4.8 miles per second (3.3 and 7.7 kilometers per second). Researchers from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), where Juno’s UVS instrument was built, suggest these auroral emissions are triggered by charged particles coming from the edge of Jupiter’s massive magnetosphere, according to a statement from the institute.

China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has captured stunning images of Mars as a bright red sunlit crescent in deep space.

The photographs were separately taken over the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars with the medium resolution camera on Tianwen-1, China’s first interplanetary mission.

Earlier in March, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity arrived at a scenic rock formation nicknamed “Mont Mercou,” after a mountain in southeast France. The rover posed for a selfie in front of the Martian rock outcrop after collecting its 30th rock sample to date.

Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars looked a lot different than it does today. For starters, its atmosphere was thicker and warmer, and liquid water flowed across its surface. This included rivers, standing lakes, and even a deep ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere. Evidence of this warm, watery past has been preserved all over the planet in the form of lakebeds, river valleys, and river deltas.

For some time, scientists have been trying to answer a simple question: where did all that water go? Did it escape into space after Mars lost its atmosphere, or retreat somewhere? According to new research from Caltech and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), between 30% and 90% of Mars’ water went underground. These findings contradict the widely-accepted theory that Mars lost its water to space over the course of eons.

The research was led by Eva Scheller, a Ph.D. candidate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She was joined by Caltech Prof. Bethany Ehlmann, who is also the associate director for the Keck Institute for Space Studies; Caltech Prof. Yuk Yung, a senior research scientist with NASA JPL; Caltech graduate student Danica Adams; and JPL research scientist Renyu Hu.

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With an internal global ocean twice the size of Earth’s oceans combined, Jupiter’s moon Europa carries the potential for conditions suitable for life. But the frigid temperatures and the nonstop pummeling of the surface from Jupiter’s radiation make it a tricky target to explore: Mission engineers and scientists must design a spacecraft hardy enough to withstand the radiation yet sensitive enough to gather the science needed to investigate Europa’s environment.

The Europa Clipper orbiter will swoop around Jupiter on an elliptical path, dipping close to the moon on each flyby to conduct detailed reconnaissance. The science includes gathering measurements of the internal ocean, mapping the surface composition and its geology, and hunting for plumes of water vapor that may be venting from the icy crust.

SPARKS, Nev. (KOLO) — Their headquarters sits on a hill overlooking east Sparks, but Sierra Nevada Corporation’s sights are set much higher.

Long known for the development of high-tech equipment for applications here on Earth, they are also a major player in space exploration and research.

They provided some key parts to the latest Mars rover, Perseverance, and in a virtual press conference from their plant in Colorado Wednesday they announced an ambitious timeline for their latest projects—commercial flights with its Dreamchaser spaceplane to the International Space Station next year…and by 2028, a replacement for the space station itself.

An ancient crater lake in the southern highlands of Mars appears to have been fed by glacial runoff, bolstering the idea that the Red Planet had a cold and icy past.