How Do We Settle on Mars?

The idea of colonizing Mars has been explored at length, in fiction and as a real possibility. But what are the challenges and benefits of making Mars a “backup location” for humanity?

Webb Reveals Secrets of Neptune’s Evolution

A twinset of icy asteroids called Mors-Somnus is giving planetary scientists some clues about the origin and evolution of objects in the Kuiper Belt. JWST studied them during its first cycle of observations and revealed details about their surfaces, which gives hints at their origins. That information may also end up explaining how Neptune got …

This Hot Jupiter is Doomed to Crash Into its Star in Just Three Million Years

In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time, it was part of a new class of exoplanets (“Hot Jupiters”) discovered a little more than a decade before. However, subsequent observations revealed that WASP-12b was the first Hot Jupiter observed that orbits so closely …

How We Get Planets from Clumping Dust

Our gleaming Earth, brimming with liquid water and swarming with life, began as all rocky planets do: dust. Somehow, mere dust can become a life-bearing planet given enough time and the right circumstances. But there are unanswered questions about how dust forms any rocky planet, let alone one that supports life.