solar system articles
What's in the Orion Arm?
The region our Solar System calls home within the colossal structure of the Milky Way galaxy is known formally as the Or...
What are the main characteristics of Jupiter?
Jupiter stands unrivaled in our solar neighborhood, a behemoth whose very presence shapes the orbits and evolution of th...
How many habitable planets are there in our solar system?
When we gaze up at the night sky from Earth, the question of how many other worlds in our local neighborhood might suppo...
How do astronomers think the four Galilean moons of Jupiter formed?
The celestial dance of Jupiter’s four largest satellites—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—has captivated observers sin...
What are the parts of a comet?
When we look up at the night sky and spot one of those celestial visitors streaking across the darkness, we are seeing a...
Does every solar system have a Goldilocks zone?
The simple answer to whether every star system possesses a Goldilocks Zone is complex, leaning toward "no," depending on...
Is the Oort Cloud made of ice?
The vast, spherical reservoir surrounding our Sun, known as the Oort Cloud, is often described as the extreme edge of ou...
What icy bodies mostly originate in the Oort Cloud before being flung toward the Sun?
The icy bodies that make their dramatic, fiery visits to the inner solar system—the long-period comets—are believed to h...
What icy bodies does the Oort Cloud contain?
The remote reaches of our solar system harbor a colossal, spherical reservoir composed primarily of icy debris, a struct...
How are the Galilean moons formed?
The four largest satellites of Jupiter, first observed telescopically by Galileo Galilei in 1610, represent a miniature ...
Are we in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way?
The island of stars we inhabit, the Milky Way galaxy, is a grand, barred spiral structure, and yes, our local neighborho...
Can we see objects in the Oort Cloud?
The realm of the Oort Cloud represents the very edge of our solar system's gravitational dominion, a vast, spherical hal...
How many objects have been discovered in the Kuiper belt?
The remote, icy frontier beyond Neptune, known as the Kuiper Belt, is home to countless primitive objects that offer a p...
Is the solar system in the disk of the Milky Way?
The structure we call home, the Solar System, resides deep within the flattened component of our home galaxy, the Milky ...
Is our Solar System in the Sagittarius Arm?
The question of exactly where our Sun and its planetary entourage reside within the vast expanse of the Milky Way galaxy...
What were the three major components of the solar nebula?
The vast, swirling cloud of gas and dust that birthed our Sun and its attendant planets—the solar nebula—was not a homog...
What planets have we crashed satellites into?
The act of sending an artificial object toward another world often culminates in a planned or unplanned collision, a fin...
What is the astronomical system of units CSS?
The immense span of the cosmos renders everyday measurements like kilometers and miles laughably small, akin to using mi...
What is the name of NASA solar probe?
The spacecraft NASA sent to directly study the Sun, plunging closer to its star than any object before it, is named the ...
What is the astronomical system of unit?
The sheer scale of space necessitates special ways of thinking about distance, far beyond the simple miles or kilometers...
What does the solar nebula contain?
The solar nebula, that vast, rotating cloud of gas and dust from which our Sun and all the planets coalesced, was a dyna...