Material around Chiron, a small icy world in the far reaches of the solar system, may be taking shape into a ring system of its own. The rare event is unfolding in real time, giving astronomers a unique opportunity to witness the evolution of celestial bodies. A team of scientists from Brazil observed initial hints […]
How a Reddit User Proved Flat-Earthers Wrong
If you’re tired of arguing with flat-earthers the old-fashioned way, a Reddit user has just demonstrated an infinitely cooler method with a security camera, the shadow of his garage, and a little patience. As far as ignoring scientific evidence goes, flat-earthers probably come in first place. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle was one of […]
The Asteroid Belt Is Vanishing
Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter lies a ring-shaped region called the asteroid belt, home to the vast majority of our solar system’s space rocks. The asteroid belt is as old as the solar system itself, having formed from leftover material that failed to coalesce into a full-grown planet due to Jupiter’s gravitational influence. […]
Neptune Dances in Sync With a Rare Distant Object, Astronomers Find
For lovers of newly identified space objects, July has indeed been an exciting month. Last week, astronomers described Ammonite, a potential dwarf planet beyond Pluto. Yesterday, astronomers announced the existence of BetelBuddy, a small companion star orbiting Betelgeuse. And now we have another exciting discovery to share. In a Planetary Science Journal paper published earlier […]
Astronomers Discover Potential Dwarf Planet Lurking Way Beyond Pluto
Astronomers in Japan have spotted a distant object orbiting the Sun far beyond Neptune, pointing to an extraordinary event that took place during the earliest years of the solar system. Astronomers used the Subaru Telescope, perched atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii, to make the discovery. They observed a small object orbiting at a farthest […]
Wild New Image Shows a Twin of Our Solar System Being Born
The first-ever baby pictures of a solar system that’s not our own are finally here—and they’re beautiful—and as adorable as space entities can get. In a paper published today in Nature, astronomers presented HOPS-315: a Sun-like protostar cooking up a brew of hot minerals and silicon monoxide gas, located about 1,300 light-years away from Earth. […]
Uranus Leaks More Heat Than We Thought
When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, the spacecraft detected a surprisingly low level of internal heat from the planet. Since then, scientists believed Uranus to be the odd one out in our solar system’s family of giant planets—the others being Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune—who all tend to emit more heat than they absorb […]
Experimental Propulsion Tech Could Reach Mysterious Planet Beyond Pluto in 10 Years
On November 14, 2003, astronomers spotted what was at the time the most distant known object orbiting the Sun. They called it Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the ocean. It’s a cold, reddish dwarf planet that drifts billions of miles away from the Sun during its 10,000-year orbit before coming in for a relatively […]
Something Big Is Twisting Mercury’s Crust
Mercury has it rough. Not only is it the smallest planet in the solar system, it’s also the closest to our Sun. This unfortunate position has caused Mercury to develop cracks and fractures across its surface, and generate stresses to its crust, a new study has found. Mercury is dry, rugged, and heavily cratered; the […]
A Rogue Star Could Hurl Earth Into Deep Space, Study Warns
Billions of years from now, the Sun will swell into a red giant, swallowing Mercury, Venus, and Earth. But that’s not the only way our planet could meet its demise. A new simulation points to the menacing threat of a passing field star that could cause the planets in the solar system to collide or […]