Solar System
NASA's Interstellar Mapping Probe Prepares for a 2025 Launch
Engineers at NASA have completed an important milestone in developing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft. It's now…
It Doesn’t Take Much to Get Tilted Planets
Chinese and Indian astronomers were the first to measure Earth's axial tilt accurately, and they did it about 3,000 years…
What Would Happen to Earth if a Rogue Star Came Too Close?
Stars are gravitationally fastened to their galaxies and move in concert with their surroundings. But sometimes, something breaks the bond.…
JWST Detects Carbon Dioxide in a Centaur for the First Time
A study published today in The Planetary Science Journal examines how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has conducted a…
Io has 266 Active Volcanic Hotspots Linked by a Global Magma Ocean
Jupiter's Io stands apart from the Solar System's other moons, with its numerous volcanoes and its surface dominated by lava…
Europa and Enceladus are the Perfect Targets for a Lightsail Mission
There's always a need for new technologies or for novel uses of existing technologies to lower the cost of space…
Colliding Moons Might Have Created Saturn’s Rings
If we could wind the clock back billions of years, we'd see our Solar System the way it used to…
A Nearby Supernova Almost Destroyed the Solar System Before it Could Form
Way back in time, about 4.6 billion years ago, our Sun and planets were busily forming nestled inside a cloud…
There Could Be Captured Planets in the Oort Cloud
The early Solar System was a turbulent and chaotic place with icy material hurled far from the Sun, becoming the…
A Few Interstellar Objects Have Probably Been Captured
When Oumuamua travelled through our Solar System back in 2017, people around the world paid attention. It was the first…