Tag: Solar system

An alignment of four planets in our solar system

Rare sight as the alignment of four planets will be visible through naked eyes, before sunrise on April 30.

April 21, 2022

Early solar system harboured gap between inner & outer regions: MIT

"Over the last decade, observations have shown that cavities, gaps, and rings are common in disks around other young stars,"

October 18, 2021

Time To Visit The Neighbour

The detection of phosphine in Venus' clouds is a big deal-here's how we can find out if it's a sign of life

September 23, 2020

The shadow play of planets

The transit of Mercury helps measure our distance to the Sun.

November 13, 2019

Researchers find moon-forming disk of gas around a distant planet

Most models of planet formation show that circumplanetary disks disappear within about 10 million years.

July 12, 2019

‘Near Neighbour’

With Thursday’s milestone in space exploration, humanity has landed on what they call the “far side of the Moon”, hitherto a wholly mysterious segment.

January 5, 2019

Chemically richer

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has revealed unknown details about Saturn's rings-and just how strange they are.

October 10, 2018

Surface tensions

A prayer-field of ice may prevent a craft from alighting on Jupiter's moon, Europa.

October 10, 2018

Of hope lurking in icy craters

Nasa's grand vision for the future notwithstanding, the best prospect for life on the Moon is if we put it there ourselves.

August 29, 2018

Under Europa’s skin

We may not need to go far to find extra-terrestrial life after all.

July 25, 2018

How the hours pass on Venus

A working day on the planet is not just long, its length is changeable

June 20, 2018

Wasn’t always lifeless

Scientists say ‘ingredients for life’ on the Red Planet bring us closer than ever to finding extra-terrestrials.

June 13, 2018

A sense of curiosity, of wonder

One point seven billion is a big number. That’s how many stars have been mapped in the Milky Way, the galaxy that is home to our sun and our solar system. And if that doesn’t make you feel a bit insignificant, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. City dwellers have lost...

May 20, 2018

Meteorites brought water to Earth in first two million years

Water may have been brought to our planet by meteorites during the first two million years of after the birth of the solar system, a study has found. Since elements such as water and carbon are essential ingredients to life on Earth, researchers are keen to know when they arrived on our planet. “We’re looking...

January 21, 2018

Messenger from afar

One of the highlights of 2017 was the discovery of the first object in our solar system that definitely came from somewhere else. At first we thought it was a comet, then an asteroid, and now the International Astronomical Union has reclassified it as something new entirely — an interstellar object. The Hawaiian astronomers who...

January 17, 2018

NASA to announce final concepts for future robotic solar system mission

NASA on Tuesday said it would announce final concepts for a future robotic mission to explore the solar system during a media teleconference on Wednesday. The mission, targeted to launch in the mid-2020s, would be the fourth in NASA’s New Frontiers portfolio – a series of cost-capped missions led by a principal investigator. Current New...

December 19, 2017

Pluto may have liquid water oceans beneath icy surface: NASA

In a boost to the search for alien life, a new NASA study suggests that some icy worlds in our outer solar system, including Pluto, may harbour liquid water oceans beneath the surface. Heat generated by the gravitational pull of moons formed from massive collisions could extend the lifetimes of liquid water oceans beneath the...

December 2, 2017