Could we put out the sun with a sun-sized orb of water?
18 July 2023
What would happen if we pushed a sun-sized ball of water into our star? The Dead Planets Society podcast dives into the possibilities
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Premium
Our solar system could be hiding an extra planet the size of Uranus
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
What are the prospects for life on the icy moons Europa and Enceladus?
10 April 2023
As far as we know, there are three main ingredients required for life: liquid water, an energy source and complex chemistry. Do Europa or Enceladus have them all?
Breathtaking JWST image of Uranus shows rings, clouds and a polar cap
6 April 2023
We only have a few images of the rings around Uranus, but now the James Webb Space Telescope has captured a startling view
Weird dust ring orbits the sun alongside Mercury and we don't know why
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
Dwarf planet Quaoar has a weirdly big ring of debris encircling it
8 February 2023
Quaoar, a dwarf planet in our solar system, has a ring of debris orbiting it that is far further out than we thought the laws of physics allow
Hayabusa 2 has brought back gases from an asteroid for the first time
20 October 2022
Gases brought back from the asteroid Ryugu by Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft are revealing the asteroid’s history and may help us reconstruct the evolution of the solar system
Astronomers found a weird asteroid closer to the sun than any other
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
A long-lost rogue planet could explain unexpectedly distant asteroids
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
NASA’s Juno spacecraft takes closest images of Europa for 20 years
29 September 2022
NASA's Juno spacecraft flew just 352 kilometres above Jupiter’s moon Europa, sending back extraordinarily detailed images of the surface
