Planet

NASA's InSight has provided … well, insight, into the inner workings of the Red Planet. By monitoring marsquakes over the past two years, the instrument measured the thickness and composition of Mars’ crust, mantle and core, revealing some surprises.

Space is an exceptionally strange place, full of signals and observations that defy our understanding of the universe. In trying to explain these mysteries, sometimes astronomers hypothesize extremely exotic objects that we haven’t yet found.

Astronomers have counted the number of neutrons inside carbon atoms from 2.8 quadrillion km away. The team managed to measure the ratios of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time, which can tell us about how it formed.

Mercury’s disproportionately massive core may be the result of the Sun’s powerful magnetic influence rather than the consequence of a cataclysmic collision with another body in the ancient past, according to the results of a new study.

Astronomers have used computer modeling to reveal the chaotic fate of a distant solar system in which the planets orbit in near perfect synchronization, and in the process shed light on how ancient white dwarfs become polluted with debris.

Not all planets orbit stars - some drift freely through the cosmos on their own. These cold, dark worlds don’t make great candidates for hosting life, but a new study suggests that their moons could be more habitable than they might seem.

ESA has selected EnVision as its next Venus orbiter. Scheduled to launch between 2031 and 2033, the robotic deep-space probe will carry out a comprehensive survey of Earth's sibling planet to learn why the two turned out so very different.

Venus should have been Earth’s twin, but clearly that’s not the case today with its thick poisonous atmosphere and barren rocky surface. Now, as part of its Discovery Program, NASA has selected two new missions to Venus to investigate what went wrong.

Scientists have recreated in the lab some of the wild weather that might be found on Jupiter and Saturn. Using extremely high pressures and laser shock waves, the researchers produced helium rain which has been hypothesized to fall on these planets.

Exotic forms of carbon were predicted to exist under extremely high pressures. But in a new study researchers have examined carbon under the highest pressure ever studied in the lab, and found that diamond sticks around much longer than expected.

Astronomers have discovered a nearby system of exoplanets with unusually orderly orbits but disordered densities. Five of the six planets circle the star in a rare rhythmic dance called a resonance chain, while their densities are weirdly shuffled.

Researchers at the Paris Observatory's Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation have found that the unusual tilt of Saturn's axis is due to the periodic gravitational pull of its moons over the last billion years.