Young Jupiter was smacked head-on by massive newborn planet

A colossal, head-on collision between Jupiter and a still-forming planet in the early solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago, could explain surprising readings from NASA's Juno spacecraft, according to a study this week ...

What we know about Jupiter

Look towards the north-west after sunset (south-west in the northern hemisphere) and there is currently one bright point of light that easily stands out relative to everything around it. That is the planet Jupiter, shining ...

The moons of Jupiter

Jupiter was appropriately named by the Romans, who chose to name it after the king of the gods. In addition to being the largest planet in our Solar System – with two and a half times the mass of all the other planets combined ...

A crystal ball into our solar system's future

Astronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary system that resembles the expected fate of our solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its life in about five billion years.

Wandering Jupiter accounts for our unusual solar system

Long before Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed, it seems that the inner solar system may have harbored a number of super-Earths—planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. If so, those planets are long gone—broken ...

How long does it take to get to Jupiter?

We're always talking about Pluto, or Saturn or Mars. But nobody ever seems to talk about Jupiter any more. Why is that? I mean, it's the largest planet in the solar system. 318 times the mass of the Earth has got to count ...

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