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Just two weeks after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has opened its "eye" and returned its first images from space—a major operational milestone ...
Far above rain clouds, light pollution, and atmospheric distortion, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has a clear view of the universe. It has shown us distant galaxies, tracked interstellar objects as they soar through our solar ...
Scientists have unraveled a fascinating new insight into how the landscape of the dwarf-planet Pluto has formed.
2021 was a good year for research of all kinds. The strongest coronal mass ejection in years made headlines this past May, prompting experts around the world to urge world leaders to take it as a warning. Future storms, many ...
As the new space race continues, a team of top researchers says one thing needs to be cleared up—what exactly is a planet?
A new study led by Southwest Research Institute determined the brightness of the galactic Lyman-alpha background using a SwRI-developed instrument aboard NASA's Kuiper Belt space probe, New Horizons.
After decades of uncertainty, researchers have confirmed the existence of lunar carbon dioxide cold traps that could potentially contain solid carbon dioxide. The discovery will likely have a major influence in shaping future ...
On October 19, 2017, astronomers made the first-ever detection of an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our solar system. Designated 1I/2017 U1 ′Oumuamua, this object confounded astronomers who could not determine ...
What makes a planet a planet? The answer turns out to be rather contentious. The official definition of a planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is that a planet must satisfy three conditions:
The planets of the solar system all orbit the Sun more-or-less in a plane. Compared to the Earth's orbit, which defines the plane at zero degrees, the orbit with the largest angle is Mercury's whose inclination is 7 degrees ...
