planetary-science

In a recent NASA-supported study, researchers assessed Titan's resource base and how it could be leveraged for ISRU. Compared with other locations under study (the Moon, Mars, etc.), they concluded that there is unrivaled potential for human exploration and settlement.

The hunt for Planet Nine continues as new discoveries make the Solar System’s biggest mystery even harder to solve. Is there a massive undiscovered planet on the outer reaches of the Solar System? The idea has been around since before the discovery of Pluto in the 1930s. Labeled as planet X, prominent astronomers had put [...]

Mercury will appear farthest from the sun in its current evening apparition on June 15.

Venus’ extraordinarily slow retrograde rotation was likely caused by a chance encounter with a moon-sized impactor. One that some 4.5 billion years ago likely slammed into our sister planet at a high angle and high velocity.

Venus appeared to move closer to Jupiter in Earth's sky, as the two planets drifted farther apart in space.

Using the Keck Observatory, astronomers measured the spins of dozens of giant planets and brown dwarfs orbiting distant stars. They found that giant planets can spin faster than much more massive brown dwarfs, challenging simple assumptions about mass and rotation. The results suggest that magnetic fields and formation processes play a major role in determining how fast worlds end up spinning.

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes ​Submit a question Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun , a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book , as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: A…

NASA-supported scientists have provided new information about how the early Earth may have acquired some elements necessary for the planet to become habitable. They also suggest a new role for Jupiter in the distribution of these elements throughout the young solar system. The study, published in Science Advances, examines this history by looking at the ratio of phosphorus to nitrogen in iron met…

A rare meteorite recovered from the Sahara Desert has revealed compelling evidence for a long-lost world that existed during the solar system’s earliest days. About 4.5 billion years ago, a large planetary body, potentially as large as the Moon or even Mars, orbited the Sun before colliding with another object and breaking apart. Now, researchers [...]

Every galaxy you've ever seen in a photograph is hiding something. Beyond the glowing disc of stars and gas that the camera captures lies a vast, ghostly outer region called a halo, too faint to see easily but packed with clues about how that galaxy came to be. ESA has just formally committed to a mission designed to reveal those hidden haloes in unprecedented detail, and in doing so, finally ans…

New research shows many binary asteroids may host multiple generations of moons, creating exotic satellite shapes like contact binaries.

Meteor camera networks can reveal the hidden history of the solar system, and you can assist from your own backyard

A small rock found in the African desert has just handed scientists an extraordinary window into one of the most violent and consequential periods in the history of the Solar System. Inside this lunar meteorite, a chunk of the Moon knocked to Earth by an ancient collision, researchers have found evidence of a massive impact event 3.5 billion years ago, one that matches the timing of known impacts…

Saturn's moon Titan has long fascinated scientists, it’s a world with rivers, lakes, and a thick atmosphere, all made not of water but of methane. Now, a new study suggests Titan is stranger than first imagined since beneath its surface lies a 9 km thick crust of methane laced ice that acts like a giant thermal blanket, warming the interior in ways nobody expected.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 11 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02895-6 On the tidal response of Titan inferred from Cassini data

A handful of meteorites carry clues from the solar system’s earliest days. One recently studied rock from the Sahara appears to trace its origins to a world that no longer exists.

Ancient asteroid impacts may have done more than reshape Earth’s surface. For decades, asteroid impacts have been viewed mainly as agents of destruction. But on the young Earth, they may have done something far more surprising: helped create some of the planet’s first habitable environments. A new study from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) suggests that [...]

In this universe, mankind looked up at the sky and said... Yuck. Humans looked upwards. In our world they saw hope, romance, and delicate beauty. In that world they saw this thing. Their eyes turned down, they continued to exist as mortals, but the civilizations and cultures withered and... Read more

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, APXS Strategic Planner and Payload Uplink/Downlink Lead, University of New Brunswick, Canada Earth planning day: Friday, June 5th, 2026 In a very broad sense, Curiosity has two modes of doing science – one centred around a defined science campaign (such as the recent boxwork campaign) and the other as we move […] The post Curiosity Blog: Sols 4913-4919: Plan…

Scientists found evidence that Chicxulub remained hydrothermally active four times longer than earlier estimates.