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.
What Are the 'Dog Days of Summer'?
How to Find Orion's Belt in the Night Sky
Astronomers Tell You How and Where to Best View Meteor Showers
Shooting the Stars as an Astrophotographer
Stellarium Is the Free 'Planetarium' for Your Computer
The Hitomi Satellite Briefly Glimpsed the Universe, Then Died — What Happened?
Aldebaran: The Brightest Star in the Constellation Taurus
6 Red-Hot Facts About the Red Giant Star Arcturus
Twinkle, Twinkle: The Ultimate Stars Quiz
Learn More / Page 5
Check out this video of what astronauts in space see as the shadow of the moon crosses our planet.
The total solar eclipse will be visible across North America. Here's some information on how to view it safely, and what scientists may learn from it.
New Jupiter information gathered by NASA's Juno space probe is in, and it reveals that the solar system's biggest world has surprising features that may alter our concept of how gas giants work.
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And solving that issue could go a long way toward making our planetary neighbor habitable.
Energized subatomic particles bombarding Earth from outer space can cause the electronics inside laptops, cell phones and other devices to crash.
Say hello to the newly discovered TRAPPIST-1 system, which is just 39 light-years away and filled with seven Earth-like planets.
Satellites have found evidence of massive underground channels formed by molten rock on the moon. They could be stable enough to house lunar pioneers, a study suggests.
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It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a supermoon! Aside from being bigger and brighter than a regular moon, does a supermoon affect anything on Earth?
Saturn's largest moon Titan is the only other celestial body we know of that has liquid lakes on its surface. NASA has just captured some amazing footage of clouds.
The rings of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may be remnants of smaller planets destroyed long ago by the gas giants' powerful gravity.
The European Space Agency's Gaia satellite observatory has created a 3-D model of the Milky Way — and beyond! — that charts more than a billion stars.
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NASA scientists say solar eruptions could have played a role in creating not only friendly environments, but also the building blocks of life itself.
The sun's atmosphere is actually hotter than its surface, even though you'd assume the surface is what generates all that heat. How does that work?
Radiation from distant galaxies and even black holes travels light years through the universe to have a tiny but measurable impact on humanity.
And if we're going to get technical about it, neither do those of us here on Earth.
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A NASA spacecraft captured footage of a comet hurtling toward the sun. And then it got crazy
The space telescope's ultraviolet observations come days before the Juno space probe will arrive to orbit the gas giant's polar regions.
After a five-year trip, the space probe reaches its destination on a mission to learn about the gas giant's origin and evolution.
Decades after archaeologists unearthed King Tut's tomb, we're still talking about the boy-king. This time it's because of his awesome space dagger.
By Holly Frey
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Understanding just how the "tiger stripes" on Enceladus have sustained water eruptions from its global ocean for so long helps us learn more about Saturn's rings.
Reconciling large- and small-scale physics in a new simulation gives us better understanding of our home star.
A massive planet 10 times the size of Earth seems to have been lurking on the edge of our solar system for some time now. How come we never noticed it before?
Sometimes you can't be afraid to throw an elbow, even if you're a planet.
By Robert Lamb
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When you think about massive, mysterious cosmic bodies like accretion disks, the water swirling around your bathtub probably isn't the first thing to come to mind. But hey, physics works the same magic on all scales.
A billion years ago, the moon stopped being geologically active. But that's not to say that the moon is doing nothing for Earth. Let's find out why we owe our moon some thank yous.