The Latest Breaking News from the Solar System

Crystal-studded space rock found in the Sahara may rewrite the history of the early solar system

The rocks were found in May 2020 in the Erg Chech sand sea, in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria.

Space · Jan 6, 2024

How we discovered that Uranus and Neptune are actually nearly identical in colour

In many images of the two outer gas giants of the Solar System, Neptune typically looks rich blue while Uranus comes across as pale green. But now our new study, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, has revealed that these two ice giants are actually very similar…

The Conversation · Jan 5, 2024

The 12 Best Space Images of 2023

Here are our picks for the 12 best space images of the year.

Inverse · Dec 18, 2023

What will ‘cosmic detective’ OSIRIS-Rex bring back on September 24? | Explained

NASA's OSIRIS-Rex mission will drop a capsule of pristine asteroid material in the Utah desert on September 24. The astro-material may provide insights into how planets formed, what materials were present in the early Solar System, and how life on the earth began. OSIRIS-Rex had to precisely choreograph a celestial…

The Hindu · Sep 23, 2023

Inside NASA’s Historic OSIRIS-REx Mission To Bring A Chunk of An Asteroid Back To Earth

On Sunday, NASA will finally witness the descent of its first asteroid sample retrieval mission.

Inverse · Sep 22, 2023

Are we about to see a rare green comet light up the sky? An expert on what to expect from Nishimura

Of all the objects in the Solar System, perhaps the most spectacular are the great comets that occasionally grace our skies. If you’ve been on social media in the past few days, you’ve probably seen articles proclaiming we have such a comet in our skies right now: C/2023 P1 (Nishimura).

The Conversation · Sep 14, 2023

Why the Evidence for Interstellar Materials Found on the Ocean Floor is Flimsy

The discovery was quite interesting because, although such spherules are distributed globally, it is not easy to recover them from the depths of the ocean bed – requiring a dredging operation with a powerful magnet.

Inverse · Sep 10, 2023

Scientists give verdict on Harvard professor’s claim of finding materials in sea from outside Solar System

‘None of the evidence’ presented is ‘sufficiently convincing’ to infer they are from outside the Solar System

The Independent UK · Sep 7, 2023

Have we really found the first samples from beyond the Solar System? The evidence is not convincing

Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at Harvard University in the US, has published a press release claiming that some of the 700 or so spherical metallic fragments (spherules) he recovered from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Papua New Guinea, are from beyond the Solar System.

The Conversation · Sep 6, 2023

Sahara space rock 4.5 billion years old upends assumptions about the early Solar System

In new research published in Nature Communications, scientists analysed lead and uranium isotopes in Erg Chech 002 and calculated it is some 4.56556 billion years old, give or take 120,000 years

The Hindu · Sep 5, 2023