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Planets

An artist's conception of the view from Farout.

Cool Finds

Meet Farout, the Solar System’s Most Distant Minor Planet

Observations suggest the object is 300 miles in diameter, pinkish-red and 3.5 times as far away from the sun as Pluto

An artist's rendering of the small rover that will be deployed on the far side of the Moon as part of the Chang'e-4 mission.

China Launches First Mission to Land on the Far Side of the Moon

Not glimpsed by humanity until 1959, the surface of the far side of the Moon has never been visited before

An artists concept of the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu.

Asteroid Sample-Return Mission Arrives to Collect Primordial Rocks of the Solar System

As the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrives at its target asteroid Bennu, scientists on the ground prepare for a new bounty of planetary samples

Illustration of NASA's InSight lander about to land on the surface of Mars.

Watch NASA Land the InSight Spacecraft on Mars

The InSight lander has successfully touched down on Mars

Once NASA's InSight lander touches down on the surface of Mars, it will use a seismometer to measure "Marsquakes," and a self-hammering heat probe will burrow five meters below the surface to study the internal heat of the planet.

NASA Will Attempt Its Eighth Mars Landing on Monday

Touching down on the surface of the Red Planet is one of the most difficult engineering challenges ever attempted, and InSight is about to give it a go

An artist’s impression of the newly discovered planet’s surface.

Astronomers Discover Second-Closest Known Exoplanet

The planet, a frozen Super-Earth, orbits Bernard’s Star about six light-years away

The color-enhanced image was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager, according to NASA.

Cool Finds

Juno’s Latest Photo of Jupiter Is Breathtaking

The image, processed from JunoCam’s raw data, shows storms and winds in the planet’s Northern Temperate Belt

Water found deep within the planet's interior contains different ratio of heavy hydrogen isotopes and normal hydrogen, pointing toward separate point of origin

Where Did Earth’s Water Originate? Solar Nebula, Study Suggests

Researchers say the hydrogen contained in these clouds of gas and dust contributed to formation of one out of every 100 water molecules found on Earth

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Ingenious Minds

Astrophysicist Michelle Thaller on Understanding Our Place in the Universe

Autodesk vice president Brian Mathews talks with the NASA science communicator about the search for life on other planets and why it’s important

Trending Today

Kepler Space Telescope, Revealer of New Worlds, Officially Shuts Down After Historic Mission

Launched in 2009, Kepler discovered thousands of new exoplanets before finally running out of fuel earlier this month

Mars imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope during a close approach to Earth.

New Research

Salty Water Under the Surface of Mars Could Have Enough Oxygen for Life

New models suggest subsurface water could absorb enough oxygen to support microbial communities and even things like sponges

An enhanced-color image of Mercury taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2012 as part of a mission to map the geologic features of the planet.

Spacecraft Launching This Week Will Explore the Mysteries of Mercury

The BepiColombo mission will study the geology and magnetism of the smallest planet to search for clues of our solar system’s beginnings

Well then what would we call a cow that jumps over a moonmoon?

New Research

If a Moon Has a Moon, Is Its Moon Called a Moonmoon?

A new study suggests it’s possible some moons could have moons and the internet wants to give them a name—but scientists have yet to actually find one

New Research

Saturn’s Rings Rain Organic Compounds Into Its Atmosphere

The Cassini probe’s final flybys show that 22,000 pounds of material per second drops from the rings into the planet’s ionosphere

New Research

Astronomers Find What May Be First Exomoon—And It’s an Absolute Unit

Astronomers suspect that there’s Neptune-sized celestial body trailing an exoplanet about 8,000 light years

An artist’s conception of a distant Solar System Planet X, which could be shaping the orbits of smaller extremely distant outer solar system objects like 2015 TG387.

New Discovery Stirs Up Signs of the Elusive Planet 9

A new minor planet called “the Goblin” is the second most distant known object in the solar system

Illustration of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observing an M dwarf star with orbiting planets.

TESS Space Telescope Will Find Thousands of Planets, but Astronomers Seek a Select Few

NASA’s new space telescope has already discovered two planets, but the hunt for a world like Earth is just getting started

New Research

Jupiter’s Magnetic Field Is Super Weird and Has Two South Poles

Analysis of data from the Juno probe shows the giant planet’s field is much different from our own and suggests it has a dissolved core

An eroded area of the Medusae Fossae Formation.

New Research

Most of Mars’ Dust Comes From One Place

Erosion of the Medusae Fossae Formation has, over billions of years, likely covered the entire planet in 10 feet of volcanic dust

Cool Finds

Jupiter Officially Has 12 New Moons

The new satellites are mostly tiny and include one oddball that is on a collision course with some of the 78 other moons orbiting the planet

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