Category: Solar System
-
What’s Up: October 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA
A supermoon, and meteor showers from the Draconids and Orionids A supermoon takes over the sky, the Draconid meteor shower peeks through, and the Orionid meteor shower shines bright. Skywatching Highlights Transcript What’s Up for October? A Supermoon takes over,…
-
Help Map the Moon’s Molten Flows!
When asteroids hit the Moon, the impacts carve out craters and with enough energy and pressure, melt parts of the rocky surface. Often, the white hot, gooey melt (it’s like lava, except that it doesn’t erupt from underground) sloshes around…
-
New NASA Mission to Reveal Earth’s Invisible ‘Halo’
This story is also available in Spanish. A new NASA mission will capture images of Earth’s invisible “halo,” the faint light given off by our planet’s outermost atmospheric layer, the exosphere, as it morphs and changes in response to the…
-
NASA’s IMAP Mission to Study Boundaries of Our Home in Space
Summary Space is a dangerous place — one that NASA continues to explore for the benefit of all. It’s filled with radiation and high-energy particles that can damage DNA and circuit boards alike. Yet life endures in our solar system…
-
Regions on Asteroid Explored by NASA’s Lucy Mission Get Official Names
The IAU (International Astronomical Union), a global naming authority for celestial objects, has approved official names for features on Donaldjohanson, an asteroid NASA’s Lucy spacecraft visited on April 20.
-
Juno Detected the Final Missing Auroral Signature from Jupiter’s Four Largest Moons
Jupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular auroras in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet interacts with the solar wind and moons swept by Jupiter’s magnetic field. Unlike Earth’s northern…
-
What’s Up: September 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA
Saturn’s spectacle, a Conjunction, and the Autumnal Equinox Saturn shines throughout the month, a conjunction sparkles in the sky, and we welcome the autumnal equinox. Skywatching Highlights Transcript What’s Up for September? Saturn puts on a spectacular show, a sunrise…
-
Close-Up Views of NASA’s DART Impact to Inform Planetary Defense
On Sept. 11, 2022, engineers at a flight control center in Turin, Italy, sent a radio signal into deep space. Its destination was NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, which was flying toward an asteroid more than 5 million…
-
As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate
A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA’s fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this…
-
What’s Up: August 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA
Venus-Jupiter Conjunction and Meteor Mojo Jupiter and Venus shine brightly in the mornings as they appear to graze each other in the sky on the 11th and 12th. The Perseids are washed out by the Moon. Skywatching Highlights All Month…