A Cassini portrait of five of Saturn’s moons. Janus (179km across) is on the far left, Pandora (81km across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring, Enceladus (504km across) is centre, Rhea (1,528km), is bisected by the right edge of the image and the smaller moon Mimas (396km) is seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
With only days to go before NASA’s Cassini space probe ends its two-decade mission to explore Saturn, what has it revealed about the ringed planet, the second largest in our solar system?
Two spacecraft concepts for the Plato mission.
ESA
While we on Earth are familiar with our own star, the Sun, the European Space Agency’s PLATO mission will explore solar systems similar to ours as well as those that are more exotic.
The Voyager space probes sent back some amazing images of the planets in the outer Solar System, and they’re still talking to Earth every day via Australia’s tracking station.
Composite image of moments before, during and after totality.
NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
An astronomer explains how. why and when eclipses happen, what scientists can learn from them, and what they would look like if you were standing on the Moon.
The Sun is currently middle-aged, having celebrated its 4,568,000,000th birthday at some point in the last million years.
Flickr/ChopWood CarryWater
The images are in from the Juno probe’s closest flyby so far of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Citizen scientists are now getting involved in processing those images.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot observed by Juno in July 2017.
.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Juno has flown closer to the solar system’s most famous storm than any other spacecraft to take the most detailed images to date. They may help scientists reveal some of the spot’s best-kept secrets.
Artist’s impression of Proxima Centauri b.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
You may even be able to find other planets around the star closest to our solar system.
A view from the ‘Kimberley’ formation on Mars taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground dip towards the base of Mount Sharp, indicating flow of water toward a basin that existed before the larger bulk of the mountain formed.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
We could learn a lot from any mission to send people to Mars, such as whether there’s life elsewhere in the universe or even the technology for new household appliances.
This enhanced-color image of Jupiter’s south pole and its swirling atmosphere was created by citizen scientist Roman Tkachenko using data from the JunoCam imager on NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko
We may need to re-think our models of Jupiter’s formation thanks to the first results from Juno probe orbiting the planet, and new observations from Earth.
JAXA has announced a mission to visit the two moons of Mars and return a rock sample to Earth.
Saturn and its rings backlit by the sun, which is blocked by the planet in this view. Encircling the planet and inner rings is the much more extended E-ring.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Earth is a relatively dry planet compared to some of the other ocean worlds in our Solar system. Life needs water so what about life on these other places?
Astronomers predict the existence of Planet 9 based on data collected in the outer Solar System.
from www.shutterstock.com
To help find Planet 9, you just need a computer and a little astronomy knowledge. Already, 120,000 images have been processed by citizen scientists in just 3 days.
Pluto is a dwarf planet but that doesn’t make it any less worthy of our attention.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
A group of astronomers are trying to reclassify Pluto as full ‘planet’. But there are good reasons to leave our classification system alone, and this doesn’t mean Pluto is any less interesting.
Right side of the moon.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio