Planetary Science
Uranus may have looked weird when NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by
A solar wind event days before the NASA probe flyby in 1986 may have compressed the planet’s magnetosphere, making it look odder than it usually is.
Space
More Stories in Space
- Astronomy
A zombie star’s spiky filaments shed light on a 12th century supernova
A 3-D map of the strange remains of a supernova seen in 1181 traces the odd tendrils of gas that jut out for several light-years in all directions.
- Planetary Science
50 years ago, scientists found a new moon orbiting Jupiter
In 1974, astronomers discovered Jupiter’s 13th moon. They now know of at least 95 moons and have launched missions to study some up close.
- Space
A distant quasar’s black hole is oddly huge for its galaxy
The black hole’s mass is over half that of all the stars in the surrounding galaxy, a record for any galaxy hosting a quasar.
- Science & Society
Using AI, historians track how astronomy ideas spread in the 16th century
A new AI machine learning technique helped historians analyze 76,000 pages from astronomy textbooks spanning nearly two centuries.
- Space
A near-Earth asteroid offers clues to one dark matter theory
Data from the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu place a ceiling on the strength of a hypothetical fifth force that could explain dark matter’s origins.
- Space
JWST spots the first known ‘steam world’
Astronomers have found a world shrouded in an atmosphere of water vapor, orbiting a star 100 light-years away.
- Planetary Science
The cataclysmic origins of most of Earth’s meteorites have been found
Just a few smashups in the asteroid belt may account for 70 percent of Earth’s meteorites, limiting what’s known about our solar system’s history.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Europa mission is a homecoming for one planetary astronomer
Over her long career, Bonnie Buratti has seen the search for life in the solar system go from a joke to a flagship mission.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s first Trojan asteroid has finally been discovered
Saturn joins the sun’s other giant planets that have Trojans, space rocks that orbit along the same path.
