Cassini spies the ice-giant planet Uranus

(Phys.org) —NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured its first-ever image of the pale blue ice-giant planet Uranus in the distance beyond Saturn's rings.

Planet X myth debunked

It was an elusive planet that for 200 years appeared to explain Uranus's wobbly orbit. And there was the sister sun theorized to be near our solar system that caused asteroids to swerve toward Earth.

Three centaurs follow Uranus through the solar system

Astrophysicists from the Complutense University of Madrid have confirmed that Crantor, a large asteroid with a diameter of 70 km has an orbit similar to that of Uranus and takes the same amount of time to orbit the Sun. Researchers ...

A eulogy to Herschel

(Phys.org)—With its 2160 litres of liquid helium about to run out, the Herschel Space Observatory will, by the end of March, become just another piece of space junk.

Incredible images of the Moon from Earth

Think this is an orbital view of the Moon? Guess again. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault took this image from his backyard in the suburbs of Paris, France! He's taken a series of images of the Moon the past few nights that ...

Uranus auroras glimpsed from Earth

(Phys.org) -- For the first time, scientists have captured images of auroras above the giant ice planet Uranus, finding further evidence of just how peculiar a world that distant planet is. Detected by means of carefully ...

STAR TRAK for February 2012

As evening twilight fades during February, the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, will highlight the sky as they come into view in the southwest.

Giant planet ejected from the solar system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as an expert chess player sacrifices a piece to protect the queen, the solar system may have given up a giant planet and spared the Earth, according to an article recently published in The Astrophysical ...

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