Uranus is an odd ball among the planets of the Solar System. For starters its axis of rotation is tilted almost parallel to the plane of the Solar System and its magnetic field is not aligned with this axis.
Neptune's moon Triton revolves opposite to Neptune's rotation in an inclined orbit that convinces astronomers it is a capture moon from the Kuiper belt. Since it is larger than Pluto it is the largest object birthed in the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers also speculate that Triton has a metallic core that may be radioactive enough to generate a subsurface ocean.
Milankovitch Cycles are caused by changes in Earth's orbit and axial tilt and cause long term impacts on climate. Current the Milankovitch Cycles are working in our favor producing an inter-glacial period with moderate temperatures.
This first installment on the Apollo program examines President Kennedy's choice of a manned moon landing as the United States' ultimate goal for NASA. Once the moon was the objective it was not obvious how to get there. A rocket with enough fuel to travel to the moon, land and then return would have to be huge.
An unanticipated discovery by the current fleet of Solar probes are thousands of sungrazing comets. These comets often pass through the Solar corona. Some even survive. But most become plasma which interacts and provides valuable information about the Solar magnetic field.
Here is the story of giant galaxies reaching the end of their star forming period told with images from the Hubble Telescope. As stars stop forming these galaxies lose there dramatic color and spiral arms transitioning into lenticular and then elliptical galaxies. But they aren't yet ready disappear. These galaxies are chock full of red stars that will shine, though dimly, for billions more years.
NASA is preparing (2021) to launch a probed named LUCY to explore Jupiter's Greek asteroids surrounding it's L4 Lagrange Point and a binary Trojan asteroid near Jupiter's L5 Lagrange Point. First contact will be a main belt asteroid in 2025.
The Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo and New Horizons space probes visits to the Galelian moons of Jupiter opened humanities eyes to the diversity Solar System objects. Suprisingingly, there are found moons with volcanoes, surface cracks hundreds of miles long, multi-ring craters and subsurface oceans.
In 2011 the Messenger probe went into orbit around the planet Mercury conducting the first close up observations. Here are some of the surprising surface features it discovered.
Astronomers saw some surprises when the Voyage probes entered interstellar space which were caused by the counter rotation of the Sun's magnetic fields at the north and south poles and possibly from the hypothetical supernovae that compressed the gas cloud that formed the solar system.
Despite centuries of anecdotal evidence including damage, injuries and deaths, ball lightning has been frustratingly difficult to document scientifically.
In 1994 astronomers were fortunate to have three interplanetary probes in position to record the impacts of fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet with Jupiter's atmosphere and the resulting fireballs.
Having competed its primary mission exploring Jupiter, Juno's orbit was adjusted to take a close look at Ganymede and then Europe. Still to come in 2023 is a visit to Io.
Vulcan is a theoretical planet inside the orbit of Mercury which, had it existed, would have explained the deviation of Mercury's orbit from Newton's Law of motion. But the orbital deviation was the result or relativistic effects.
Shortly after launch NASA's LUCY probe, destined to explore several Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, failed to fully open one of its solar arrays. Patiently over several months NASA engineers performed a remote repair. Then, upon discovering a satellite of one of the target asteroids, expanded LUCY's mission scope.
