King of the solar system

It’s difficult to fully grasp the enormity and extremity of Jupiter. The planet – a striped behemoth of swirling gas with around 100 moons, one of which is larger than Mercury – dominates the Solar Sy

Isn’t it amazing that astronomy – humanity’s oldest science – continues to generate such a delightful amount of new knowledge? Seeing as we’ve been studying the motion of the stars for a good long whi

20 amazing answers t o curious

To make a planet, first you’ll need a massive, reasonably dense cloud of cold gas and dust. Luckily, later generations of the cosmos have provided just that. These clouds, rich in hydrogen, helium and

Our Solar System is home to hundreds of moons, but how many can you observe? Some – like our own and the brighter ones around Jupiter and Saturn – are relatively easy to see with the naked eye, binocu

Of the hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system, it is all too feasible that one could strike Earth. If scientists discover this is likely to happen, what are our options for defending ourselves – and who will make the key decisions? Tomas Weber reports