Latest Solar System Stories

Researchers working on NASA's Kepler Mission have discovered an unlikely pair of planets -- one similar to our planet, and the other roughly the size of Neptune -- locked in a surprisingly close orbit around a distant star located more than a thousand light years from Earth. The work, which was led by Joshua Carter of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and University of Washington Associate Professor of Astronomy Eric Agol, discovered that the smaller planet, which was...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com After several decades of making a lonely journey across our solar system, Voyager 1 has signaled to NASA that it may have reached the edge of interstellar space. The spacecraft, which launched in 1977, is now roughly 11 billion miles away and traveling at 6 miles per second. NASA said it takes Voyager 1's data 16 hours and 38 minutes to reach the antennas of its Deep Space Network on Earth. Data from the spacecraft indicates that the 34-year-old...

A new study finds that the pattern of heat coming from volcanoes on Io's surface disposes of the generally-accepted model of internal heating.  The heat pouring out of Io's hundreds of erupting volcanoes indicates a complex, multi-layer source.  These results come from data collected by NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes and appear in the June issue of the journal Icarus. A map of hot spots, classified by the amount of heat being emitted, shows the global distribution and wide...

The long and tumultuous history of asteroid (21) Lutetia is revealed by a comprehensive analysis of the data gathered by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft when it flew past this large main-belt asteroid on 10 July 2010. New studies have revealed the asteroid's surface morphology, composition and other properties in unprecedented detail. In particular, extensive studies of Lutetia's geological features have opened a unique window into the complex history of this peculiar object. On its way to...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its closest approach to Saturn's tiny moon Methone as part of a trajectory that will take it on a close flyby of another of Saturn's moons, Titan. The Titan flyby will put the spacecraft in an orbit around Saturn that is inclined, or tilted, relative to the plane of the planet's equator. The flyby of Methone took place on May 20 at a distance of about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers). It was Cassini's closest flyby of the 2-mile-wide (3-kilometer-wide) moon. The...

Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.com In two more weeks, the Earth will get to view a spectacle that hasn't been seen in eight years, and will not be seen again until 2117. Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a tiny silhouette, like a small freckle on a face. The 7-hour transit will be observed on all seven continents on Tuesday, June 5, starting at 5:09 p.m. Central Time. The transits of Venus first gained popularity back in the 18th century, a time when the solar system...

NASA has just received observations from its WISE (or Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission, giving them the best assessment thus far of how many PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids) are floating around in our solar system. Now, the team at NASA can count these PHAs, discover their origins and predict what kind of harm they may pose to Earth. According to a report from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, these PHAs are a subset of a larger group of near-Earth asteroids...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system's population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about their total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth...

[ Watch the Video ] A team of NASA researchers has uncovered new data showing that the sun is moving more slowly through our galaxy than previously believed -- a discovery that suggests a shock wave believed to precede the heliosphere might not actually exist, the US space agency revealed on Thursday. According to Andrew Fazekas of National Geographic News, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite measured the speeds of various interstellar particles along the outer edges...

Researchers say life-bearing planets may exist in vast numbers in the space between stars in the Milky Way A few hundred thousand billion free-floating life-bearing Earth-sized planets may exist in the space between stars in the Milky Way. So argues an international team of scientists led by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, UK. Their findings are published online in the Springer journal Astrophysics and...