Earth’s Water Was Around Before Planet Earth
To understand how life emerged, scientists investigate the chemistry of carbon and water. In the case of water, they track the various forms, or isotopes,…
Solar System News
Webb Space Telescope: Uncovering Hidden Parts of Our Solar System
The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe. One of Webb’s key science goals is to study the…
High-Energy Oxygen Ions Discovered in Jupiter’s Innermost Radiation Belts
Researchers find high-energy oxygen and sulfur ions in Jupiter’s inner radiation belts — and a previously unknown ion source. Nearly 20 years after the end…
Lost in Space: Earth and Mars Were Formed From Missing Solar System Material
By looking at the range of isotopic variations in terrestrial and meteoritic samples, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist and collaborators have figured out…
Earth and Mars Were Formed From Collisions of Large Bodies Made of Inner Solar System Material
International research team investigated the isotopic composition of rocky planets in the inner Solar System. Earth and Mars were formed from material that largely originated…
Analyzing Meteorites To Track Down the Forces That Shaped Our Solar System’s Evolution
Meteorites are remnants of the building blocks that formed Earth and the other planets orbiting our Sun. Recent analysis of their isotopic makeup led by…
Hubble’s Stunning Grand Tour of the Outer Solar System
Stunning Yearly Observations Reveal Changes to Gas Giants’ Atmospheres In Greek mythology, a race of giants, called the Titans, first ruled the world. The ancient…
The Early Solar System Had a Mysterious Gap Where the Asteroid Belt Is Today
Wind the cosmic clock back a few billion years and our Solar System looked much different than it does today. About 4.5 billion years ago,…
Planetary Composition: The Planet Does Not Fall Far From the Star
A compositional link between planets and their respective host star has long been assumed in astronomy. For the first time now, a team of scientists,…
A Mysterious Gap Within the Solar System’s Protoplanetary Disk
Scientists find evidence the early solar system harbored a gap between its inner and outer regions. The cosmic boundary, perhaps caused by a young Jupiter…
Planet Discovered That Survived Its Star’s Death: A Crystal Ball Into Our Solar System’s Future
Giant gas planet orbiting a dead star gives glimpse into the predicted aftermath of our sun’s demise. Astronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary…
NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft To Explore Unique Asteroid for Clues to Early Solar System
Set to launch next year, NASA’s Psyche mission marks the first time the agency has set out to explore an asteroid richer in metal than…
How Special Are We? New Clues to the Formation of Our Solar System
Nearby star-forming region yields clues to the formation of our solar system. The radioactive elements could have been blown onto the nascent solar system by…
Planet 9 May Be Out There – Here’s Where We Need To Look
There are eight known planets in the solar system (ever since Pluto was booted from the club), but for a while, there has been some…
The Solar Wind Across Our Solar System [Infographic]
The Sun releases a constant stream of particles and magnetic fields called the solar wind. This solar wind slams worlds across the solar system with…
Sculpted by Starlight: An Unusual Meteorite Witness to the Solar System’s Birth
Researchers use unusual meteorite to gain insight into our solar system’s past, present. In 2011, scientists confirmed a suspicion: There was a split in the…
“Big Surprise!” – Heavy Metal Vapors Unexpectedly Found in Comets Throughout Our Solar System – and Beyond
A new study by a Belgian team using data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has shown that iron and nickel…
Putting the Pieces Back Together: Scientists Reconstruct Solar System’s Original Architecture
As the solar system was developing, the giant planets (Jupiter and Saturn) formed very early, and as they grew, they migrated both closer to and…
