Solar system
The solar system is a gravitationally bound system of the sun and the orbiting objects around it. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud.
It is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. There are eight planets with about 210 known planetary satellites, countless asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and other icy bodies.
The four inner system planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – are called terrestrial planets because of their rocky surfaces. The four giant planets of the outer system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are substantially more massive than the terrestrials.
TRENDING NOW
ESO Telescope Reveals What Could be the Smallest Dwarf Planet Yet in the Solar System
Astronomers using ESO’s SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the asteroid Hygiea could be classified as a dwarf planet....
Age-old debate on Saturn’s rings reignited
A study that dates the rings as most likely to have formed early in the solar system.
The newly discovered comet might be an interstellar visitor
If it is interstellar, it would be only the second such object detected.
First Water Detected on Planet in the Habitable Zone
The first successful atmospheric detection of an exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, at a distance where water can exist in liquid form.
Harvard astronomer discovered exoplanet without an atmosphere
Prospects clouded for finding life on the largest class of planets.
New study determined the Moon is much older than previously believed
The moon is a very old soul. Now, the new analysis of lunar rocks brought to Earth by Apollo astronauts determined that the Moon...
Scientists reproduced the dynamics behind high-energy astrophysical shocks
Now experiments led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the Princeton Center for Heliophysics have for the first time reproduced the process behind the source of astrophysical shocks.
Astronomers observed two dwarf planets with gas disk around them
Using Earth’s most powerful array of radio telescopes, astronomers have made the first observations of two dwarf planets with the gas disk around them.
Meteors help Martian clouds form
Enormous cloud-like plumes reaching 260km above the surface of Mars have left scientists baffled. This is way beyond Mars’s typical weather, entering into the...
Moon formation brought water to the Earth
Earth is the only terrestrial planet with a large amount of water and a relatively large moon, which stabilizes the Earth's axis. Earth grew...
Explosions of universe’s first stars spewed powerful jets
After the Big Bang and before the first stars ignited, the universe was a very dark and cold place. There were no galaxies, no...