The Solar System

In the Solar System Channel, you can explore the planets and celestial objects around our own sun. Learn about topics such as Mars, Jupiter and the Moon.

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The annual Leonid meteor shower is back, and peaks in the late-night hours of November 17. It's made up of tiny bits of debris from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Here's how to see it.

By Patrick J. Kiger

What if your job were to protect life in the galaxy at all costs? That's exactly what the folks manning NASA's Planetary Protection office do, and bunny suits are just the beginning.

By William Harris

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One tragic, moonless night in April 1912, the Titanic slid into the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean -- for good. A crew of Texas State academics suggested that Earth's favorite satellite may have some explaining to do.

By Nicholas Gerbis

Surely you've watched tons of sunsets in your lifetime. But have you ever seen the sunset and the moonrise simultaneously? Is that even possible?

By Sharise Cunningham

As the search for Planet Nine wears on, and astronomers have yet to get so much as a glimpse of it, researchers are pondering what else the object might be.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

The Geminid meteor shower is one of the year's stronger displays in terms of number and size of meteors. When's the best time to see it?

By Christopher Hassiotis

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The moon has seen a lot in its 4.5 million years of life, and this detailed geologic map serves as testament.

By Jesslyn Shields & Yara Simón

In 1953, CalTech geochemist Clair Patterson came up with an estimate for Earth's age that still holds today.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Everyone's heard of the blue moon and the harvest moon, but every other full moon of the year has a name, too. What are their names, and when do these moons occur?

By Nathan Chandler

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Researchers at the Zwicky Transient Facility have found an asteroid in Earth's orbit. And this one has the shortest year yet.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

Did you know that a moon can leave its orbit around a large planet and go out on its own?

By Patrick J. Kiger

Back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union decided to demote Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet. A historical study challenges that designation.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Astronomers have just discovered a gas in Uranus' clouds that does nothing to help the planet being taken seriously.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

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Can a moon have a moon of its own?

By Patrick J. Kiger

The idea behind the "fake" moon is to provide extra illumination to Chengdu, a city in China's Sichuan province. What could possibly go wrong?

By Mark Mancini

After cruising 300 million miles and spending seven months in space, the InSight spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars' surface. How awesome is that?

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

Some scientists think the existence of plate tectonics could be a prerequisite for life. So do they exist on other planets outside of Earth?

By Mark Mancini

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Once upon a time, the sun caught an interstellar orphan and adopted it as its own. It's named 2015 BZ 509.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

To define the location of objects in the sky, astronomers utilize a system of celestial coordinates, which extends latitude and longitude from Earth's surface into space.

By Patrick J. Kiger

Like Earth, the sun does rotate, but in a different way.

By Patrick J. Kiger

No worries though. Jupiter, Neptune or Uranus could create their own beautiful, bright ring display in the distant future.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

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Rovers are getting some practice hunting for microbes here on Earth before they head to Mars in 2020.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

Every April, the Lyrid meteor shower fills the sky with shooting stars. Here's how to see them in 2023.

By Mark Mancini