Models suggest something is wrong with our picture of the early solar system Panther Media Global / Alamy The inner solar system may have formed differently from how we have long thought it must have. For decades, researchers have thought that the rocky planets formed from a single disc of dust and debris in the…
Comet K1 captured by the Hubble Space Telescope NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU) By a stroke of luck, we have seen a comet just days after it cracked into four pieces. This could provide a crucial window into the history of the solar system. John Noonan at Auburn University in Alabama and his colleagues had…
Artist’s depiction of the asteroid 2025 MN45 NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has spotted the fastest-rotating large asteroid ever seen. Despite measuring more than half a kilometre across, this asteroid spins about once every 1.9 minutes – a speed once thought to be impossible. Dmitrii Vavilov at…
The breakup of C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, opens a window into how fragile comet nuclei evolve and collapse. These Hubble images of the fragmenting comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) were taken over the course of three consecutive days: November 8, 9, and 10, 2025. Image credit: NASA / ESA /…
Samples returned by JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 mission from the C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases — purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (cytosine, thymine and uracil) — pointing to a cosmic origin for some of life’s fundamental chemistry. Hayabusa-2 image of the asteroid Ryugu as seen from a distance of 3.7 miles. A…
Using a vast catalog of Sun-like stars built by ESA’s Gaia mission, astronomers have found strong evidence that our home star traveled outward with thousands of stellar counterparts roughly 4 to 6 billion years ago, offering new clues to the formation of the Milky Way’s central bar. An artist’s impression of a migration of the…
