Solar System
This Hot Jupiter is Doomed to Crash Into its Star in Just Three Million Years
In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time,…
Comets: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth?
Universe Today has explored the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, and solar physics, and what this…
Asteroid Ryugu Contained Bonus Comet Particles
On December 5th, 2020, Japan's Hayabusa2 mission successfully returned samples it had collected from the Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) 162173 Ryugu…
Six Planets Found Orbiting an Extremely Young Star
The field of exoplanet study continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As of the penning of this article, 5,572…
Since Interstellar Objects Crashed Into Earth in the Past, Could They Have Brought Life?
On October 19th, 2017, astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey detected an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our Solar System for…
Voyager 1 Has Another Problem With its Computer System
For more than 46 years, the Voyager 1 probe has been traveling through space. On August 25th, 2012, it became…
Eris Could be Slushier Than Pluto
In 2005, astronomer Mike Brown and his colleagues Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz announced the discovery of a previously unknown…
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…
A Tiny Quadcopter Could Gather Rocks for China’s Sample Return Mission
Space exploration is always changing. Before February 2021 there had never been a human made craft flying around in the…
NASA is Getting the Plutonium it Needs for Future Missions
The Department of Energy just delivered a shipment plutonium that NASA will turn into radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) for future…