Most of the times we have looked at Uranus, it has seemed to be a relatively calm place. Well, yes its atmosphere is the coldest place in the solar system. But, when we picture the seventh planet…

Four billion years ago, a young Mars had enough water to bury its whole surface under 400 feet of ocean, but it is more likely that, as on Earth, it pooled. In the case of Mars, it probably formed an…

Undefined matter under the envelope of "dark matter" makes up over 80% of the universe - but it has never been directly detected. But the search is on to narrow it down and a new paper has…

The Z machine generates electric currents of up to 20 million amps, to shoot aluminium projectiles at iron targets, replicating the impacts of early asteroids. CC BY New experiments show that the…

A new type of methane-based, oxygen-free life form can metabolize and reproduce similar to life on Earth. This hypothetical cell membrane, modeled by a team of researchers, is composed of small…

3753 Cruithne's wacky orbit around the Sun. Image: YouTube, CC BY-SA We all know and love the moon. We’re so assured that we only have one that we don’t even give it a specific name. It is the…

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, and NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will arrive at this dwarf planet on March 6, 2015. Pluto is the largest object in the Kuiper belt, and NASA’s New Horizons…

What is hiding in the large disk of gas and dust encircling the 20 million-year-old star Beta Pictoris?  In 1984 Beta Pictoris was the very first star discovered to be surrounded by a…

Plumes that reached over 100 miles above the surface of Mars, reported by citizen scientist astronomers in March and April 2012, continue to puzzle scientists. In the past, similar events had…

Jupiter’s icy moon Europa puzzles astrobiologists and sparks the imagination of extraterrestrial life seekers. It is believed that the moon has a subsurface ocean of liquid water, where life could…