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Something very strange is happening around the star KIC 12557548. Its light dims every 15 hours, as though a planet is orbiting around it...except the dimming varies wildly each time around. A planet is being vaporized before our eyes. More »
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Billions of years ago, Mercury was choked in unimaginable amounts of lava. About six percent of the entire planet was covered in the lava of a single volcanic maelstrom. Not bad considering we weren't even sure Mercury had volcanoes. 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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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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It was only three months ago that the first ever close-up images of Mercury from orbit were taken by the MESSENGER probe. Now, in commemoration of MESSENGER's hundredth orbit of the first planet, here's a look at Mercury's colorful side. 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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NASA's Messenger probe has already taken thousands of photos of Mercury's surface after coming into orbit around the planet earlier this week. And it's got plenty still to do, including searching for hidden pockets of ice on Mercury's boiling surface. More »
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This is a historic moment - for the first time ever, a probe has seen the solar system's innermost planet from orbit, and this is the photo it took just a few short hours ago. 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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White ibises have experienced a huge drop in their reproductive rate, and mercury contamination was a prime suspect. But nobody expected pollution to alter the birds' sexual preference, as the male ibises were actually nesting with each other. 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 bright, star-like pair is actually the Earth and the Moon from Mercury's perspective, 114 million miles away. If Mercury had intelligent life, its astronomers would surely think the Moon is our twin planet, not just our satellite. [Discovery News] More »
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If you're planning a trip to Mercury, you'll need the first map ever released of the solar system's innermost planet, a mosaic of photos from the Mercury missions. More »
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When our solar system's orbits all break down and planets are crashing into each other, we'll know exactly who's to blame: a tiny ball of rock called Mercury. Chaotic factors in Mercury's orbit could destabilize the whole solar system. More »
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"It's easy to say, 'let's just cancel it and move on' but we've poured over a billion-and-half dollars into this." So said NASA's associate administrator for science, Ed Weiler, last Friday as he unveiled budget overruns on the Mars Exploration Project. While the space jockeys tried to spin the story as their Mars project still being on schedule, the real issue is the pricetag, and it's one the next president will take a hard look at. What would a President Obama mean for our country's space mission? More »
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NASA's Messenger spacecraft zoomed past Mercury yesterday, sending back a set of luminous images that look like they were taken by celebrated nature photographer Ansel Adams in space. Here you can see the bright pocks left by recent meteors crashing to the planet's surface, opening up complicated webs of cracks. Want to see those cracks close up? More »
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NASA's Messenger space capsule is aiming to photograph Mercury as it swings by, a prelude to putting the first spacecraft in orbit with the planet in 2011. The Messenger will fly 124 miles above the planet's surface to grab snapshots of an un-photographed part of Mercury the size of South America. The astrological community has long had problems with Mercury constantly going in retrograde, blaming it for taking down the Large Hadron Collider among other things, so hopefully the NASA capsule gets to the bottom of this mystery. We detail Mercury's various issues with our superior planet, and what NASA hopes to accomplish by photographing it, after the jump. More »
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Ever since the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to a dwarf planet (does it even deserve a capital "P"???) in 2006, astronomers around the world have been at odds to describe just what they mean when they say the word "planet." For the moment, the solar system is holding steady with eight of them, but late last week evidence returned from the Mercury MESSENGER mission showed that the smallest planet left is shrinking. One has to wonder: how long will it be before Mercury gets plutoed? More »
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NASA's probe MESSENGER flew by Mercury a couple of weeks ago, and the photos have started pouring in. This is one of the most striking. Nicknamed "the spider," it's probably the result of a meteor impact with about fifty cracks radiating outward from it. Apparently, it's the only such structure in the solar system, making it officially cool. More »
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NASA's Messenger space probe finally sent back its first high-res images of Mercury's dark side, and they're surprisingly sparkling. Mercury's dark side is actually "illuminated obliquely" by the sun. Messenger is giving us our first real view of Mercury's Caloris basin, and may help to solve mysteries like why Mercury has a magnetic field when Venus and Mars don't, and what lurks in its shaded polar regions. Click through for the full image. More »
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The Messenger Space Probe is flying past Mercury as you read this, taking pictures of the night side of the planet no human has yet seen. It'll be a while before we get images as cool as the 1997 NASA image on the left. But you can download realtime images from the probe's cameras, and combine them to make your own Mercury art right now. Click through for images and a tutorial. More »
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