Q&a with an ocean moon explorer

The best discoveries, inventions and surprises

Ten years ago, Pluto emerged from the gloom at the Solar System’s ragged edge – and a new world came in from the cold. Five billion kilometres (3 billion miles) from Earth, on 14 July 2015, NASA’s pia

The prospect of life on Mars – Earth’s planetary next-door neighbour, an alien world that betrays tantalising hints of a watery past – has bewitched humanity for centuries. From the ‘canals’ seen by a

The Moon has a diameter of around a quarter that of Earth and travels around our planet in a circular orbit roughly every 27 days. But Earth also possesses a number of tiny co-orbital bodies – objects

Type: Sinuous rille Size: 80km x 2.5km Longitude/latitude: 3.1° E, 25.7° N Age: 3.2–3.9 billion years Best time to see: First quarter (2–3 July) and six days after full Moon (16–17 July) Minimum equip

Scientists distinguish between weight and mass, which may seem pedantic until you see what happens on a world where gravity is radically different to Earth’s