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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 […]

It’s rare but spectacular when the Moon passes in front of another planet. Here’s how to see it. From our perspective on Earth, the night sky appears virtually unchanged with the […]

The coming few years should really tell us a lot more about them.

For the Pluto fans, another sad state of affairs: your favorite world won’t make it. Nothing on Earth lasts forever, and that’s a truth that even extends to all the objects […]

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 […]

This is what we’ve learned from first object ever discovered to enter our Solar System from interstellar space. Billions of years ago, our Solar System was an extraordinarily different place […]

A very clever idea says there’s a ninth Solar System planet, larger than Earth, far beyond Neptune. Here’s why most scientists think it’s not real. It’s been nearly three years since […]

A special isotope of plutonium is necessary for missions to Mars and beyond. But we don’t have enough, and aren’t making more fast enough. As 2018 comes to a close, NASA […]

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 […]

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 […]

And super-Earth, mini-Neptunes, and super-Jupiters aren’t among them. You’ll be surprised to learn why. Just 30 years ago, if you had asked an astronomer if there were planets around other stars […]

New research on Uranus’ magnetosphere could help scientists learn about distant systems, and refine the ways they search for alien life.

Dark energy is pushing distant galaxies apart from one another at an increasing rate. If the Big Rip hypothesis is true, things will only get worse from here. One of the […]

The most unusual star known has finally had its dimming scientifically explained. Here’s the unusual, dusty resolution. The science of planet-hunting has truly taken off in the 21st century, with […]

The Planetary Habitability Laboratory has made up some periodic tables of all of the confirmed and suspected exoplanets so far, plus planetary bodies in our own solar system.

‘Luck’ is the wrong word. The Universe cooperated, but we gave ourselves the opportunity by being prepared. It was already 28 years ago that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched […]

This research may help us develop diamonds for products and better understand nuclear fusion.   

There’s no way to frame this as anything other than a disaster for humanity. This article was originally written one week ago, on the day the FY2019 budget was released […]

This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]

NASA scientists are sifting through some of the last transmissions from Cassini. And what they’re finding are kittens. You read that right.

Instead of nearly-circular ellipses, comets are extraordinarily elongated, or even on an exit path. Why so different? When you look at how the planets orbit in our Solar System, the […]

The red planet is nearby, cool, sunny, and was once potentially habitable. Could it someday be that way again? “It would be great some day to have astronauts in a rover […]

A new planet, bigger than Earth, could be lurking in the outer solar system. But new evidence says ‘probably not.’ “Although we were initially quite skeptical that this planet could […]

Earth is pretty much the limit of how large you can get and still be rocky. Anything much larger, and you’re a gas giant. “How vast those Orbs must be, and […]

With five moons orbiting it, Pluto is the richest rocky world known to date. How did it get that way? “We really expect the mission to be transformational. This is the […]

Something isn’t right about the Universe without something extra. So why can’t scientists agree on what that “extra” thing is? “All we know so far is what doesn’t work.” –Richard Feynman […]

But that’s okay; the most likely world for life may not be like Earth, after all. “You can spend too much time wondering which of identical twins is the more alike.” […]

A very small person asks a very big question: why aren’t the moons of gaseous planets also made of gas?

Could there be a massive, giant planet beyond Neptune? Here’s what the science says… for now. “Finding out that something you have just discovered is considered all but impossible is one […]

With liquid water, an energy source, and the perfect raw ingredients, Enceladus might be the holy grail we’ve been seeking. This article is written by contributing author Jesse Shanahan. Jesse is […]