27 June 2023
Many planets are thought to be flung away from their stars, but it’s possible that some get trapped on the way out – and one could be lurking at the edge of our own solar system
7 June 2023
Phil Plait, the man behind the Bad Astronomy blog, is a great guide to the wonders of the cosmos. But would it be a bad thing if his new book created a fresh reverence for our home planet among some readers?
8 February 2023
Very little debris should be able to survive for long in the area near Mercury, but the innermost planet seems to orbit the sun alongside a ring of dust that researchers can’t explain
5 October 2022
Scientists have found three strange asteroids that orbit relatively close to the sun – one is the closest to the sun we have ever found, and another may someday hit Earth
1 October 2022
The outer solar system holds some chunks of ice and rock that orbit so far from the sun it’s hard to imagine how they got there – but an ancient rogue planet may hold the key
31 August 2022
Studying the atmospheres of Venus and Mars can help us learn how Earth's climate will look in the future, says David Grinspoon
27 July 2022
In Emmi Itäranta's The Moonday Letters, humans have adapted to live off-world. But central to this genre-crashing thrill ride is a reminder that hope is essential
6 July 2022
If a star flying past our solar system moved Neptune's orbit by just 0.1 per cent, it could eventually cause the other planets to smash into one another or get thrown out of the solar system entirely
18 May 2022
A big solar storm could fry the internet, but at least space weather forecasts would give us a day or two to prepare. Or maybe not, because physicists have just discovered a new kind of solar storm that strikes without notice
16 May 2022
Simulations of more than 140,000 possible planetary systems show that pairs of giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn may make their star systems more hospitable to habitable Earth-like worlds
