The early solar system was a busy place with plenty of meteorite impacts on the new planets and moons. But finding evidence of such impacts on Earth can be tricky.
In the long lead-up to our ultimate flyby of Pluto, space science has reconfigured our notions of what it means to be a solar system, a planet, a world.
The moon might harbor bits of the Earth that blasted off our planet billions of years ago. These lunar time capsules could hold secrets about conditions here at home back when life was first emerging.
A total lunar eclipse will be visible from across all Australia this Saturday, April 4. But it will be a quick one. Rather than passing deep into the Earth’s shadow, the moon is skimming close to the shadow’s…
New experiments show that the asteroids that slammed into Earth and the moon more than 4 billion years ago were vaporised into a mist of iron. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, suggest that…
Elon Musk has built a US$12 billion company in an endeavour to pave the way to Mars for humanity. He insists that Mars is a “long-term insurance policy” for “the light of consciousness” in the face of…
To date, all human economic activity has depended on the material and energy resources of a single planet; understandably, perhaps. It is conceivable though that future advances in space exploration could…
A British-led consortium has announced an ambitious space mission named Lunar Mission One that plans to land a robotic probe in the southern polar region of the moon in about a decade. The announcement…
Who will preserve the first lunar landing site at Tranquility Base for future generations? It seems an odd question given the fact that this extraordinary archaeological site was created on July 21, 1969…
Each month, at the time of new moon, the sun and moon are together in the daytime sky. Most of the time the moon passes by unnoticed. But at least twice a year, somewhere on Earth will see the moon pass…
Whether you’re into mining, energy or tourism, there are lots of reasons to explore space. Some “pioneers” even believe humanity’s survival depends on colonising celestial bodies such as the moon and Mars…
At least twice a year, Earth comes between the sun and the moon. The result is a lunar eclipse, where we see the splendid sight of Earth’s shadow falling across the moon. Lunar eclipses are wonderful to…
Look up towards the east on Wednesday night (October 8) and a total lunar eclipse will be visible from across Australia. The moon will slowly move through Earth’s shadow, as the sun, Earth and moon fall…
Looking west after sunset on Friday September 26, the thin waxing crescent moon forms a triangle with Mercury and Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo. You can see how far Mercury has…
Take a look at the moon and it isn’t hard to imagine it as a planet. A 3,476 kilometres-in-diameter ball of rock, with basalt plains and mountain ranges, whose gravitational pull produces tides here on…