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What do the great red spot of Jupiter and the impulses running along your nerves have in common? They're both thought to be examples of solitons — or solitary waves that behave much like particles. More »
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This past weekend marked the opening of the American Museum of Natural History's brilliant new exhibition, Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration. As part of our ongoing Hardcore Science Interview series, io9 spoke with the show's curator, AMNH astrophysicist Michael Shara, about the exhibit. More »
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Back in the Forties, the science fiction rag Planet Comics published the ongoing feature "Life On Other Worlds." This section peppered scientific know-how amongst whatever gonzo shit the writer happened to make up. Here's a tour of our Solar System using old issues of Planet Comics. Did you know that Mars is occupied by gargantuan Romans?

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This solar system just doesn't work. According to a new computer simulation, the planets could never have come together in their current configuration. The only explanation is that we once had a fifth gas giant...and it's still out there somewhere. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5842013&view=rss&microfeed=true A brown dwarf located 47 light-years away is behaving very strangely. The would-be star's brightness is constantly changing, fluctuating by as much as 30% in just eight hours. This could be an atmospheric disturbance that dwarfs Jupiter's Great Red Spot. More »
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Here's something that might make you feel a little bit better about the world. NASA just successfully launched the Juno spacecraft, a solar-powered vehicle which will reach Jupiter five years from now. And NASA used an Atlas V rocket to do so. That's right — a former ICBM is being used to carry a peaceful scientific mission. More »
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We've just learned that there's strong evidence that saltwater flows on the surface of Mars. It's another reminder that water is everywhere in our solar system, whether it's ice, vapor, or liquid. Here's a handy guide to where all the water can be found. More »
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Trojan asteroids are objects that share a planet's orbit around the Sun but reside in what are basically gravitational dead zones. We've discovered Earth's first Trojan asteroid...but how did it get there, and why have we only just found it? More »
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Last week saw Neptune Day, the first anniversary - in Neptune years - of the planet's discovery on September 23, 1846. That got us thinking: what are the "birthdays" for all the other planets? Here's a handy, mildly insane guide. More »
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Mars is about half Earth's size and only a tenth its mass, which doesn't make sense. By rights, Mars should be as big as Earth and Venus. Now we know why Mars is small...it's because Jupiter is a big bully. More »
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The moon Io is home to over 400 active volcanoes, making it the most geologically active place in the solar system. And in this image created from the Galileo probe, you can see two huge volcanoes erupting from the surface. More »
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This photo shows four of the five planets visible to the naked eye, all lined up one on top of the other in the morning sky to create the most impressive planetary configuration in over a decade. More »
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There were many reasons why Pluto got demoted to dwarf planet status, one of which was that it couldn't clear its orbit of asteroids and other debris. But Earth's orbit is also crowded...too crowded for Earth to be a planet? More »
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NASA's Messenger probe is currently orbiting close around the Sun in preparation for its mission to Mercury. While making its lonely orbit, Messenger snapped this amazing photo that shows all the planets (plus our Moon) in one big family photo. More »
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What would would the night sky look like if our planet was orbited by Mars, Jupiter, or a even a parallel Earth? Brad Goodspeed has created this nifty video imagining such a scenario. More »
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Two naturalists explore the icy frontier on Saturn's inner moon Prometheus, as the ringed gas giant rises in the sky. More »
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The great challenge for any climber is to conquer each continent's tallest mountain. But tomorrow's climbers can consider a far more extreme challenge: leaving Earth to climb the tallest peaks of the solar system. Here's how they'll do it. More »
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This photo mosaic combines photos from Voyager 1's 1979 Jupiter flyby to provide our best view ever of the Great Red Spot, the gigantic storm that has raged on that planet for centuries and is twice as big as Earth. More »
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We've already discovered hundreds of exoplanets in other solar systems, but so far we haven't discovered a single extrasolar moon. It may just be because they're much harder to find - or because more extreme gravitational forces make them impossible. More »
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Jupiter became the solar system's biggest planet by consuming its chief rival, a massive rocky planet ten times bigger than Earth. New discoveries suggest Jupiter and Saturn learned a lesson from their mythological namesakes, "eating" any planet that opposed them. More »
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Jupiter has lost one of its prominent stripes, leaving its southern half looking unusually blank. Scientists are not sure what triggered the disappearance of the band. More »
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If analysis of new images of Jupiter are to be believed, the planet may have found itself with a new ring recently, which may answer the question of what happened to disappearing moon S/2000 J 11... More »
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Was this giant glowing aerial presence just a satellite — or a sign of intelligent life in the universe? That's what scientists are asking when a strange, eerily familiar shape showed up in a photo of Norway's Northern Lights. More »
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Scientists have figured out a potential reason for the difference between Jupiter's two moons: One of them has been abused so badly that its metaphorical chocolate chips have sunk to the bottom of its ice cream carton. Or something. More »
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New evidence has come to light that the vast, ice-encrusted oceans of Europa may be harboring Earth-like life that lives on the oxygen-rich waters. Time to plan your extraterrestrial fishing trip? Maybe. More »
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Water on out moon might make lunar colonization possible, but it appears that Jupiter's satellite Europa is better suited for life. A new study suggests Europa could support not just microorganisms, but complex life — and a lot of it. More »
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It's been almost a week since an Australian astronomer discovered a weird black spot on Jupiter, which is believed to be a comet impact. And now the Hubble Space Telescope has captured this crisp image of Jupiter's "scar." [Hubble Site] More »
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Yesterday, an amateur astronomer noticed that a large black spot had appeared near Jupiter's Southern pole. These first pictures of the phenomenon are prompting many to speculate that a passing comet or asteroid struck the gas giant. More »
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Scientists at Pennsylvania State University resurrected glacial bacteria that had been buried for 120,000 years, raising hopes that if there was ever life on Mars, we might be able to re-animate it, too. More »
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Astrophotographer Tyler Allred took this amazing new image of the Andromeda Galaxy, which just appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune. Today's new space porn also includes Jupiter's shrinking spot, digitally-restored moon pics, and an exoplanet. More »
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Perhaps we should rename Jupiter "Unicron" or "Galactus," now that scientists have discovered that the planet may have devoured some of its own moons while being formed. Is there nothing Stan Lee didn't (incorrectly) predict? More »
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That's no moon... that's a fully opera - No, wait, it is a moon. Ganymede, in fact, as captured disappearing behind Jupiter by the Hubble Telescope. Click through for video. More »
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Many astronomers regard Jupiter as Earth’s bodyguard, diligently attracting and smashing foreign bodies that could collide with Earth. But new simulations suggest that Jupiter’s role in the solar system may not be so beneficial. In fact, the gas giant may just have it in for the inner planets, including our own. More »
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This is a picture of Jupiter's moon Io floating over the planet's clouds, to remind you how freaking huge Jupiter is. Io is the same size as our own moon. To celebrate the battle of Jupiter's Red Spots, in which the original Daddy Red seems to be in the process of eating the other two, the Boston Globe posted a set of the greatest Jupiter photos of all time, from NASA. Click through for a few of our favorites, including some truly spooky views of Europa and Io. [Boston Globe via A Second Hand Conjecture] More »
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A group of secretive rocket designers have defected from NASA's rocket-building team to spearhead their own forbidden project. They spend their evenings designing Jupiter (pictured), a moon rocket they think will work far better for less money then NASA's current moon rocket, Ares, set to bring some people to the moon in 2020. With all its plans available on a site called Direct 2.0, and nearly 100 engineers working, its possible Jupiter could zoom to the moon before Ares — if it can get some funding. More »
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Nothing says "massive destructive force" like the rocks exhumed from two kilometers down in the earthquake-causing San Andreas Fault. Mangled and twisted by the fault's awesome power, these rocks help you understand why a flick of this fault's little finger is enough to flatten entire cities. And now you can see them up close, with a new Google Earth mashup that lets you get personal with boulders that were drilled as part of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) project. More »
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Jupiter seems to be sprouting lots of Red Spots these days. Of course the original gangsta, the multiple Earth-sized Great Red Spot has been around for just about four centuries. But back in 2006 Red Spot Jr. appeared and as this picture shows, researchers have just observed a third spot west of big daddy. What's causing the outbreak? Engineer Phil Marcus of the University of California, Berkeley thinks climate change is to blame. More »
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When other planets do storms, they do 'em right. The Cassini spacecraft snapped photos of this monster thunderstorm on Saturn that's been raging for five months now, each lightning bolt packing 10,000 times more juice than it's Earthly counterparts. Jupiter's still got the illest storm in the solar system with it's almost four-century old Great Red Spot, but Saturn's storm's not too shabby — it's that blotch down in the lower right-hand part of the planet. That bright spot just below the rings? That's Saturn's moon Tethys looking way bigger than it should because it's in the foreground, just to give you a rough sense of scale. (from NASA) More »
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If you're wondering about the sunny view from the Oort Cloud, that vast sphere of debris that surrounds our solar system, here it is. As we told you yesterday, scientists now believe this remote, cold region might house another Earth-like planet. Only it would be frozen. Want to travel a little closer to the sun, and watch Jupiter rising over its frozen moon Europa? More »
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Missing the implied comedy and danger evident in its very name, scientists are studying the Giant Red Spot of Jupiter to see just what secrets it can share about its home planet, according to the Discovery Channel. The most recent interest in the eye comes following the discovery that, contrary to popular belief, it's actually one of the more calm parts of the atmosphere of the planet. Although, as Philip Marcus of the University of California explains, that's not to say that it's entirely benign. More »
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