The Latest Breaking News from Solar System

A cosmic tango: this distant planet's very strange orbit points to a violent and chaotic past

If you close your eyes and imagine a system of planets orbiting a distant star, what do you see?

The Conversation · Jul 22, 2022

China’s space agency could send a mission to Neptune — major discoveries await

Ice giants like Neptune are a potential treasure trove of scientific discoveries. China's space agency plans to launch a mission in 2030 to arrive in 2036.

Inverse · Jul 19, 2022

Journey to the mystery planet: why Uranus is the new target for space exploration

The last time a probe visited the distant ice giant was in 1986, yet learning more about this cold world could tell us a lot about the galaxy

The Guardian - UK · Jul 16, 2022

Equivalent to 1,800 tonnes of TNT: what we now know about the meteor that lit up the daytime sky above New Zealand

Meteorites hit New Zealand three or four times a year, but the fireball that shot across the sky above Cook Strait last week was unusual.

The Conversation · Jul 11, 2022

Scientists think they know when a rogue star will ruin the Solar System

The long-term stability of the Solar System has been the subject of scientific investigation for centuries.

Inverse · Jul 10, 2022

Dark matter: our review suggests it's time to ditch it in favour of a new theory of gravity

We can model the motions of planets in the Solar System quite accurately using Newton’s laws of physics. But in the early 1970s, scientists noticed that this didn’t work for disc galaxies – stars at their outer edges, far from the gravitational force of all the matter at their centre…

The Conversation · Jul 7, 2022

Jupiter's core hides a disturbing cannibal past — study

New evidence from the Juno probe shows Jupiter ingesting large quantities of planetesimals, which could explain its unusual core.

Inverse · Jul 7, 2022

Space scientists unveil new evidence icy ocean worlds and moons can host life

Water worlds are exoplanets with enough water to form a hydrosphere. They may also be our best chance of finding life off Earth.

Inverse · Jul 5, 2022

Solar system guide: Discover the order of planets and other amazing facts

Explore the eight (or nine) planets of the solar system in order from nearest to the sun and discover the many wonders of our solar system along the way.

Space · Jul 4, 2022

Nasa considers sending swimming robots to habitable 'ocean worlds' of the Solar System

Nasa has recently announced US$600,000 (£495,000) in funding for a study into the feasibility of sending swarms of miniature swimming robots (known as independent micro-swimmers) to explore oceans beneath the icy shells of our Solar System’s many “ocean worlds”. But don’t imagine metal humanoids swimming frog-like underwater. They will probably…

The Conversation · Jul 4, 2022