Light from our setting sun reflecting off storm clouds can give off a some vivid shades of pinks, purples and oranges.
Jake Clark
It’s all to do with the light from the Sun and a blanket of air wrapped around Earth called the ‘atmosphere’.
On Dec. 21, Jupiter and Saturn will be so close together they will almost appear to be touching.
(Unsplash)
From the birth of Jesus Christ to Newton’s discovery of gravity, great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn have many notable connections in human history.
The 2020 winter solstice night will be accompanied by another cosmic event known as ‘the great conjunction,’ when Saturn and Jupiter will appear right next to each other.
Andrew Doughty/EyeEm via Getty Images and Jeff Dai/Stocktrek via Getty Images
The 2020 winter solstice is also when Saturn and Jupiter appear closest to each other for 60 years, Here’s what you need to know about both the events.
Trevor Ireland
Scientists hope samples of asteroid Ryugu may reveal traces of the chemical ingredients that formed life on Earth.
Tobias Stierli / NCCR PlanetS
Unlike our hellish neighbour Venus, Earth was far enough from the Sun for liquid water to form and create a more hospitable environment for life.
NASA / Tracy Caldwell Dyson
After two decades as a home to astronauts, the International Space Station still has plenty to teach us about how humans can live away from Earth.
Artist’s concept of the OSIRIS REx spacecraft collecting material from Bennu.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Bennu will tell us about our own origins as much as about the origin of asteroid Bennu.
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
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.
ESA / DLR / FU Berlin
Three newly discovered bodies of liquid water deep beneath the south polar ice cap on Mars have planetary scientists intrigued.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover takes a selfie on Mars in June, 2018.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The clouds of Venus may harbour alien life. But where else?
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
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.
Pluto, with its basin Sputnik Planitia on the right.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker
Pluto began hot inside, study of its surface fractures suggests
An artist’s concept of a hypothetical planet with a distant sun.
(Shutterstock)
In the search for the hypothetical Planet Nine, scientists may have uncovered another explanation for the patterns in the orbits of Kuiper Belt objects.
Two planetary bodies colliding.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Earth and the Moon were long thought to be virtually identical in composition. Now we know they are not.
The Earth currently has two moons - but they won’t look like this in the sky.
Earth currently has a second moon - but it won’t stay long.
A planet-forming disk made from rock and gas surrounds a young star.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/ Gerald Eichstädt /Seán Doran
Why isn’t there an endless variety of planets in the universe? An astrophysicist explains why planets only come in two flavors.
Titan imaged in the near infrared by the Cassini orbiter on November 13, 2015.
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
Saturn’s largest moon has been fully mapped for the first time.
This Hubble Space Telescope image of Saturn and a few of its moons shows how hard it can be to spot the gas giant’s tiny orbiting companions.
NASA / ESA / Hubble
Astronomers have found 20 new moons around Saturn, and will keep finding more as technology improves.
Exomoons orbiting an exoplanet outside our solar system.
Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock.com
A giant exomoon hundreds of times the size of Earth is revealing secrets about how giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn formed. They might also help astronomers find planets where life may thrive.
NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Kepler-452b is sometimes called ‘Earth 2.0’, but there’s a lot we still don’t know about it.