Our solar system is a weird place. Much more than a home to eight planets, it’s filled with a myriad of fascinating other smaller bodies, including moons, asteroids, and comets. In recent decades, space exploration missions have brought these neighboring ...

Rather than slowly condensing over millions of years, the first building blocks of Earth and other planets may have formed rapidly in a chaotic disk at the dawn of the solar system The triumph of NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in a half-century is a reminder of what the moon really means for Earth—and why we’re going back

Scientists are grappling with a cosmic mystery: why does the Universe behave differently on massive scales compared to our own solar system? While distant galaxies reveal clear signs of something bending the rules of gravity—often attributed to dark energy or a hidden “fifth force”—everything nearby seems to follow Einstein’s playbook perfectly.

On July 1, 2025, a telescope in Chile caught a faint smudge drifting across the sky. Within weeks, astronomers confirmed it was not from around here. The object, now designated 3I/ATLAS, is only the third interstellar visitor ever identified,

The presence of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, in 3I/ATLAS suggests the interstellar comet formed in a much colder place before our solar system existed.

Rather than slowly condensing over millions of years, the first building blocks of Earth and other planets may have formed rapidly in a chaotic disk at the dawn of the solar system

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Introduction: NASA's solar system exploration paradigm : the first fifty years and a look at the next fifty / James L. Green and Kristen J. Erickson -- Part I. Overview. Exploring the Solar System : who has done it, how, and why? / Peter Westwick -- Part II.