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Hidden Clues in Spirit Rover Data Suggest Mars Once Had Far More Water than Scientists Realized

NASA’s Spirit rover on Mars. Image credit: NASA.

A new look at more than two decades’ worth of archival data from NASA’s Spirit mission suggests that the Martian soil may hold iron-bearing minerals -- hematite and altered magnetite -- that were too faint for scientists to detect in real time during the mission.

The post Hidden Clues in Spirit Rover Data Suggest Mars Once Had Far More Water than Scientists Realized appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Potential Atmosphere Detected on Habitable-Zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b

An artist’s concept of rocky planets LHS 1140b and LHS 1140c. Image credit: Melissa Weiss / Harvard & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

Using spectral data from the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, astronomers detected helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet that orbits in the habitable zone of the nearby low-mass star LHS 1140.

The post Potential Atmosphere Detected on Habitable-Zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Asteroid Donaldjohanson is Wobbly, Peanut-Shaped Object with Watery Past, Scientists Say

The asteroid Donaldjohanson is composed of two heavily cratered lobes, connected by a smoother neck, with overall dimensions 8.8 km by 4.4 km by 3.1 km. Image credit: NASA / Goddard / SwRI / Dan Gallagher.

The main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, a heavily cratered fragment born from a catastrophic breakup 155 million years ago, appears to wobble through space while preserving clues to the migration of water-rich worlds in the early Solar System, according to a new analysis of images and data from NASA’s Lucy spacecraft.

The post Asteroid Donaldjohanson is Wobbly, Peanut-Shaped Object with Watery Past, Scientists Say appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Webb Detects Methane on Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

Hubble captured this image of 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 446 million km (277 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / David Jewitt, UCLA / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Using the spectral data from the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected methane on 3I/ATLAS.

The post Webb Detects Methane on Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Webb Detects Methane in Atmosphere of Exo-Saturn TOI-199b

An artist’s rendition of the ultrahot Jupiter TOI-1518b and its parent star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Using spectral data from the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers analyzed the atmosphere of TOI-199b, a distant Saturn-mass world that is neither frozen nor scorching hot.

The post Webb Detects Methane in Atmosphere of Exo-Saturn TOI-199b appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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