Planets
A giant, busted planet fuels a nebula’s mysterious glow
This Helix Nebula is like a colorful explosion frozen in time. Its center seems to be steadily radiating X-rays.
Planets
More Stories in Planets
- Planets
A distant crumbling planet spills its guts
Based on the light being emitted by its shed minerals, astronomers can for the first time determine the internal composition of an exoplanet.
- Planets
So many wondrous moons — just a spaceship ride away
Scientists are studying extraterrestrial moons for clues to how planets form, how life began — and whether there’s life out there right now.
- 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.
