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Articles on Solar system

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This artist’s rendering shows OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending toward asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will land on an asteroid to bring home rocks and dust – if it can avoid Mt. Doom

OSIRIS-REx will touch down on asteroid Bennu, collect a sample of the dust and begin its journey back to Earth, where scientists will study it, hoping to learn secrets of the solar system’s origin.
Asteroid 2018 VP1 itself is too small and far away to see clearly, so here’s an artist’s impression of a near-Earth object. NASA / JPL-Caltech

Asteroid 2018 VP₁ may be heading for Earth. But there’s no need to worry

A small asteroid will cross Earth’s orbit on November 2. Scientists aren’t sure if the two will collide – but even if they do, there’s still no cause for alarm.
A planet-forming disk made from rock and gas surrounds a young star. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/ Gerald Eichstädt /Seán Doran

Even planets have their (size) limits

Why isn’t there an endless variety of planets in the universe? An astrophysicist explains why planets only come in two flavors.
Galileo thought Saturn looked a bit like the head of a teddy bear with two big ears. He thought it may be made of three planets. www.shuttershock.com

Curious Kids: why does Saturn have rings?

Most people think that many millions of years ago, Saturn didn’t have rings at all. Instead, it had a big moon moving around it. Eventually, the moon burst and broke into pieces.
On June 5-6, 2012, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory collected images of one of the rarest predictable solar events: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. NASA/SDO, AIA

Why we need to get back to Venus

This hot, acidic neighbor with its surface veiled in thick clouds hasn’t benefited from the attention showered on Mars and the Moon. But Venus may offer insights into the fate of the Earth.
Near-Earth asteroids such as Bennu, and 2019 OK which passed close to Earth this week, pose a potential threat to our planet. NASA

An asteroid just buzzed past Earth, and we barely noticed in time

A 100-metre-wide asteroid passed just 70,000km from Earth on Thursday, and we had little warning it was about to happen. What threat is posed by asteroids and how do we find them?
When it was young, the Sun spun fast – very fast. It would do one rotation in a just one or two Earth days. www.pixabay.com

Curious Kids: does the Sun spin as well as the planets?

Yes, the Sun absolutely spins. In fact, everything in the universe spins. Some things spin faster than the Sun, some are slower and some things spin ‘backwards’.

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