Solar System
Watch the “Blood Moon” Eclipse from Mercury
Yes, it's another time-lapse of the October 8 lunar eclipse that was observed by skywatchers across half the Earth… except…
MESSENGER Completes Second Burn to Maintain Mercury Orbit
A little over a week before NASA's MAVEN spacecraft fired its rockets to successfully enter orbit around Mars, MESSENGER performed a…
Philae Snaps a Spacetastic Selfie
Spacecraft "selfies" are always a treat and this one is doubly awesome: taken by the Philae lander piggybacked onto ESA's…
Watch Pluto and Charon Engage in Their Orbital Dance
Now here's something I guarantee you've never seen before: a video of the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon…
New Image Captures one of the Brightest Volcanoes Ever Seen in the Solar System
Jupiter’s innermost moon, Io — with over 400 active volcanoes, extensive lava flows and floodplains of liquid rock — is…
If the Sun Were the Size of a Person, How Big Would an Asteroid Be?
I love anything that attempts to provide a sense of scale about the Solar System (see here and here for…
New Image of Rosetta’s Comet Reveals So Much More
WOW! We're really getting to the good stuff now! This is no computer-generated shape model, this is the real deal:…
X-ray Glow: Evidence of a Local Hot Bubble Carved by a Supernova
I spent this past weekend backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park, where although the snow-swept peaks and the dangerously close…
How Do Gravitational Slingshots Work?
Have you ever heard that spacecraft can speed themselves up by performing gravitational slingshot maneuvers? What's involved to get yourself…
Cool Infographic Compares the Chemistry of Planetary Atmospheres
Here on Earth we enjoy the nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere we've all come to know and love with each of the approximately 24,000…