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
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.
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
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’.
The bright spot in the centre of the image is a new planet forming.
Valentin Christiaens et al./ ESO
Astronomers have found the first observational evidence for a disc of material around a giant young planet at a distant star. It’s a place they think moons can form.
Searching for planets around nearby stars is like searching for a needle in a field of haystacks.
Trevor Dobson/Flikr
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland et Stephen Kane, University of California, Riverside
Science is full of surprises. While searching for planets orbiting nearby stars, researchers stumbled across the remains of a star that once outshone the Sun.
Distant stars above the ruins of Sherborne Old Castle, in the UK.
Flickr/Rich Grundy
There are probably more than a million planets in the universe for every single grain of sand on Earth. That’s a lot of planets. My guess is that there probably is life elsewhere in the Universe.
Once people get there, Mars will be contaminated with Earth life.
NASA/Pat Rawlings, SAIC
NASA’s InSight Mars lander touches down Nov. 26, part of a careful robotic approach to exploring the red planet. But human exploration of Mars will inevitably introduce Earth life. Are you OK with that?
The Sun is a star – but it’s not the only one.
NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory
Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland et Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
There are lots of places where it’s much, much hotter than the Sun. And the amazing thing is that this heat also makes new atoms - tiny particles that have made their way long ago from stars to us.
Pluto’s ghoulish cousin, 2015 TG387, lurks in the distant reaches of our own Solar System.
Illustration by Roberto Molar Candanosa and Scott Sheppard, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science.
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland et Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
Whether you call it Planet X or Planet Nine, talk of another planet lurking in our Solar system won’t go away. So what does the discovery of a new object – nicknamed “The Goblin” – add to the debate?
The five planets visible to the naked eye since ancient times are putting on a dazzling display this month, in a night-sky dance along with the Moon.
Pluto in enhanced color, to illustrate differences in the composition and texture of its surface.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute
We are in the Milky Way. If you travelled on an extremely fast spaceship for more than two million years, you would reach our neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy. All other galaxies are even further away.
Venus shines bright in the sky above Victoria.
Flickr/Indigo Skies Photography
The planets we can see in the sky were known to the ancient Greeks as ‘wandering stars’. But they appeared much earlier in the stories and traditions of Australia’s Indigenous people.
The colorful cloud belts dominate Jupiter’s southern hemisphere in this image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Jupiter’s bands are one of its most striking features – and can be seen from Earth – but they only go so deep within the giant planet. Now scientists think they know why.
The Blood Moon from January 31, 2018. Our second chance to see an eclipsed Moon this year is coming up on July 28.
Martin George