Planets
Pluto and its moon Charon may have paired up with a kiss
After about 30 hours of contact, Charon could have separated from Pluto and drifted into its current orbit.
Planets
More Stories in Planets
- Planets
Scientists Say: Regolith
This sandlike dust blankets planets, asteroids and other rocky surfaces of our solar system, including our own planet.
- Space
The biggest discoveries of Voyagers — NASA’s most distant explorers
Voyager 1 and 2 left Earth in 1977 to fly by the outer planets. Nearly 50 years later, these spacecraft are still transforming our knowledge of space.
- Planets
A peek into a stellar nursery has revealed six baby giant worlds
Images of six Jupiter-sized worlds taken by the James Webb Space Telescope offer clues to how planets and stars form.
- Space
The moon has new tales to share, some from its secretive far side
Ongoing observations and new lunar rock samples, including the first from its far side, should point to how both the moon and our Earth evolved.
- Planets
Scientists Say: Theia
Clues about this ancient protoplanet's catastrophic end may have been entombed in Earth's lower mantle for billions of years.
- Planets
Experiment: Make your own craters!
Let’s make our own craters in cocoa and flour to learn how these features form throughout the solar system — and why they’re different sizes.
- Planets
Analyze This: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is shrinking
If the windstorm keeps dwindling, the Great Red Spot could someday disappear — like an earlier spot observed in the 1600s.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Magnetosphere
This magnetic field encapsulates our planet, sheltering us from damaging energetic threats posed by the cosmos and our own sun.
- Planets
‘Percy,’ NASA’s rover, finds its first hint of ancient life on Mars
The robot examined a Mars rock containing organic compounds and “leopard spots.” On Earth, such spots usually come from microbial life.
