Solar System
What Would Happen if the Solar System Gained a Super-Earth?
In this era of exoplanet discovery, astronomers have found over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, with thousands more awaiting confirmation and many…
Dwarf Planet Quaoar has a Ring
Quaoar is one of about 3,000 dwarf planets in our Solar System's Kuiper Belt. Astronomers discovered it in 2002. It's…
Don’t Bother Trying to Destroy Rubble Pile Asteroids
The asteroids in our Solar System are survivors. They've withstood billions of years of collisions. The surviving asteroids are divided…
The Outer Solar System Supplied a Surprising Amount of Earth’s Water
In a recent study published in Science, a team of researchers at Imperial College London examined 18 meteorites containing the…
Lucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby List
In October 2021, NASA launched its ambitious Lucy mission. Its targets are asteroids, two in the main belt and eight…
How Many Stars Formed Together With the Sun in Our Stellar Nebula?
Even though our Sun is now a solitary star, it still has siblings somewhere in the Milky Way. Stars form…
Earth’s Water is 4.5 Billion Years Old
The origin of Earth's water has been an enduring mystery. There are different hypotheses and theories explaining how the water…
The Oort Cloud Could Have More Rock Than Previously Believed
The Oort Cloud is a collection of icy objects in the furthest reaches of the Solar System. It contains the…
Asteroids Didn’t Create the Moon’s Largest Craters. Left-Over Planetesimals Did
The Moon's pock-marked surface tells the story of its history. It's marked by over 9,000 impact craters, according to the…
Comets Leave Dusty Trails That Surround the Solar System
Comets are messy things. They scatter bits of dust as they travel through the solar system. If Earth happens to…