Illustration of a poorly lit planet. Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, and R. Hurt I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again - our understanding of the solar system advances at the pace of technology. As our processing power grows, we are able to do more and more...

There are days when it seems that our outer solar system has the singular goal of frustrating astronomers. In a way, we have no one to blame but Newton. After all, his equations of motion allowed researchers to realize that Uranus’ motion required something to be...

Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM Not a week goes by without JWST finding something new and press-worthy. Given the cost of this telescope, this is as it should be.  And weirdly, at least some of the things has found are not aliens despite people’s best attempts to say...

Aurora on Neptune shine along the right side of the planet in Webb's IR images (right). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC) Earth isn’t the only...

One of the most mystifying planets to many of us are the hot Jupiters. These massive worlds have orbits smaller than Mercury’s and in some cases are so close to their stars that starlight is pushing mass off the planet or the planet is raising tides on the star....

The Universe sometimes likes to mock us. Such is the case with exoplanets. Once upon a time, researchers would sagely say, “Solar Systems like Tatooine, with twin stars, likely don’t exist.” The thing is, this was based on models that relied on limits created with...