Last chance to join our Costa Rica Star Party! Learn about the Moon in a great new book New book chronicles the space program. Dave's Universe Year of Pluto. Groups Why Join? Astronomy Day. The Complete Star Atlas. Molecular clouds, such as this portion of the W5 star-forming region in Cassiopeia shown here in infrared light , are the birthplaces of stars.
Rich Zaykoski. Snapshot: Intergalactic census reveals where stars are born. ALMA discovers spiral arms in a planetary nursery. How Did the Solar System Form? Footprints of baby planets found in a gas disk. A planet is forming in an Earth-like orbit around a young star. Why celestial bodies come in different sizes. Newly discovered planet in the Hyades cluster could shed light on planetary evolution. Observing the birth of an alien planet. Another is where substantial collisions severely impact an object's orbital trajectory.
Related: Do dust traps make planetary formation possible? Login here. Register Free. Anthony Bouchard.
Fascinated by scientific discoveries and media, Anthony found his way here at LabRoots, where he would be able to dabble in the two.
Anthony is a technology junkie that has vast experience in computer systems and automobile mechanics, as opposite as those sound. JUN 21, An international team led by researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland and the National Centre of Competenc Written By: Annie Lennon. JUL 04, It's been estimated that the universe began about Written By: Carmen Leitch. JUL 29, Scientists have spotted evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. The corresponding stu SEP 23, Other particles within the disk collided and stuck together to form asteroid-sized objects named as planetesimals, some of which combined to become the asteroids, comets , moons and planets.
The solar wind from the sun was so powerful that it swept away most of the lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, from the innermost planets, leaving behind mostly small, rocky worlds.
The solar wind was much weaker in the outer regions, however, resulting in gas giants made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. The sun is by far the largest object in our solar system, containing It sheds most of the heat and light that makes life possible on Earth and possibly elsewhere. Planets orbit the sun in oval-shaped paths called ellipses, with the sun slightly off-center of each ellipse. NASA has a fleet of spacecraft observing the sun, such as the Parker Solar Probe , to learn more about its composition, and to make better predictions about solar activity and its effect on Earth.
The four inner four planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — are made up mostly of iron and rock. They are known as terrestrial or earth-like planets because of their similar size and composition. Earth has one natural satellite — the moon — and Mars has two moons — Deimos and Phobos. Between Mars and Jupiter lies the Asteroid Belt.
Asteroids are minor planets, and scientists estimate there are more than , of them with diameters larger than three-fifths of a mile 1 km and millions of smaller asteroids.
The dwarf planet Ceres , about miles km in diameter, resides here. A number of asteroids have orbits that take them closer into the solar system that sometimes lead them to collide with Earth or the other inner planets. Earth is surrounded by a flotilla of spacecraft, and Mars has been visited by many spacecraft as well.
Some of the more prominent Martian missions include the Perseverance rover , InSight lander, Tianwen-1 rover , Curiosity rover, the Opportunity and Spirit rovers, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which takes high-resolution pictures from orbit and the Viking landers and rovers.
Related: Why do the planets in the solar system orbit on the same plane? Venus has been explored by American, European and Soviet spacecraft, such as Venera 13 over the decades.
The outer planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — are giant worlds with thick outer layers of gas. Between these planets, they have dozens of moons with a variety of compositions, ranging from rocky to icy to even volcanic such as in the case of Jupiter's Io.
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