Not only can’t astronomers and planetary scientists agree, but the IAU made it worse for everyone. If you were alive in 2006, you likely remember a momentous event in astronomy: […]
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You searched for: Neptune
Since the late 1800s, what we know has advanced light years ahead.
And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]
If you understand gravity well enough, you might not even need a telescope to revolutionize astronomy. In science, advances arise at the intersection of theory and real-world observation. One of […]
Doomsday prophesies have never once come to pass, but they’ve never had science on their side like this before. Every year, the Earth completes an orbital revolution around the Sun, returning […]
What if all planets were the same distance from Earth as the Moon?
The dream of an ‘Earth-like’ planet showcases our astrobiological ignorance. Over the past decade, our understanding of what planets exist around stars other than our own has exploded. The number […]
The first planet beyond ‘naked eye’ astronomy will pass within just 1° of Mars. Although there are eight major planets in the Solar System, most of us never see Uranus or […]
There are three possible ways we’ll find alien life. With all of these chances, the only question is which will come first. Given everything humanity has learned about the Universe, it […]
It may have been captured by Neptune since it formed, but Triton remains king of the Kuiper belt. Our Solar System is arguably the most well-studied corner of the Universe, with […]
We know that life is possible on an Earth-like world around a Sun-like star. But can it find a way on a Super-Earth? When it comes to the origin of […]
Objects coming into our solar system have an origins story to tell.
The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]
It’s a great time to be an astrobiologist—and for all of us to be asking, “Are we alone?”
After Kepler but before James Webb, TESS is preparing astronomers for the coming exoplanet revolution. There are always new discoveries and achievements occurring in science, and certain fields have experienced […]
Any hypothesis, no matter how alluring, must be confronted with the full suite of data. Our Solar System may be the closest part of the Universe to us as we look […]
Our outer Solar System, from Jupiter to Neptune, isn’t unique after all. In the early 1990s, scientists began detecting the first planets orbiting stars other than the Sun: exoplanets. The easiest […]
Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]
Happy birthday to Pluto, discovered on this day in 1930. Pluto, first discovered in 1930, was no more than a distant dot in our most powerful telescopes. Clyde Tombaugh’s original images […]
A case for looking beyond the planetary scientist’s (or even the astronomer’s) definition. Ever since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially defined the term planet — introducing the term ‘dwarf […]
The NASA probe has ventured beyond our solar system.
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In all the Universe, there’s only one Earth. But can we find the other worlds that are like ours? Even though the ingredients for life have been confirmed to be practically […]
A new computer model solves a pair of Jovian riddles.
Three scientists publish a paper proving that Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth.
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Only 8 worlds make the astronomical cut as planets. Here are the 10 fascinating bodies that didn’t make it. Astronomically, bodies within the Solar System must achieve three criteria in order […]
If we restrict ourselves to looking for extraterrestrial life on Earth-like worlds, we might miss it entirely. When we think about life out there in the Universe, far beyond the […]
If we ruin the night sky too severely, ground-based astronomy could suffer tremendously. Here’s why space is no replacement. There is an existential threat to astronomy as we know it, […]
Forget about alien nonsense. The Universe as it actually is doesn’t need any embellishments to be interesting. In our Solar System, the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and other masses are […]
Sometimes, the biggest answers to the deepest questions come in the most unexpected of places. In the Solar System, anything out past Neptune is generally considered to be the outer reaches […]
And one of our planets has the orbiting moons to prove it. Despite the dangers posed to planet Earth by a comet or asteroid strike, our Solar System is actually an […]