Current Events

  • Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm
    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm rep...Read more

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    Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm

    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm repeatedly. Daily levels of CO2 can vary due to weather, and there are seasonal trends as well. The level of atmospheric greenhouse gases continues to increase, now over 120 ppm since the Industrial Revolution began. For more on the Keeling Curve, see http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/. Find out more about greenhouse gases and warming.
  • Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley
    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Io...Read more

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    Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley

    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. On May 20th, a massive tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, devastating communities - destroying over 100 homes and hitting two elementary schools and a hospital - with many casualties and deaths. Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues suffering from these storms. For more on the May 20th storms, see the NOAA Storm Prediction Center Storm Report.
  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.

Our Solar System

Our solar system is filled with a wide assortment of celestial bodies - the Sun itself, our eight planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids - and on Earth, life itself! The inner solar system is occasionally visited by comets that loop in from the outer reaches of the solar system on highly elliptical orbits. In the outer reaches of the solar system, we find the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Still farther out, we eventually reach the limits of the heliosphere, where the outer reaches of the solar system interact with interstellar space. Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together to form the Sun, planets, and other bodies of the solar system.

A near-Earth <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&edu=elem">asteroid</a> - named 2012 DA14 by astronomers – passed within 17,200 miles from Earth on February 15, 2013. On closest approach at about 1:25 p.m. CST on February 15, although it was within the orbit of the <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&edu=elem">Moon</a> and even geosynchronous <a href="/space_missions/satellites.html&edu=elem">satellites</a>, it didn't strike Earth! Find out more from <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130201315144.html">NASA</a>! Fragments of a meteorite hit Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2/15/2013 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215">injuring over 500</a>. Learn about <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/meteors/meteors.html">meteors and meteorites</a>.<p><small><em>NASA/JPL-CalTech</em></small></p>This dramatic view of Jupiter's <a href="/jupiter/atmosphere/J_clouds_GRS.html&edu=elem">Great Red Spot</a> and its surroundings was obtained by <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&edu=elem">Voyager 1</a> on Feb. 25, 1979, when the spacecraft was 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometers) from Jupiter. Cloud details as small as 100 miles (160 kilometers) across can be seen here. The colorful, wavy cloud pattern to the left of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex end variable wave motion.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p><a href="/asteroids/asteroid_lutetia.html&edu=elem">Lutetia</a> is a medium-sized <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&edu=elem">asteroid</a>. It orbits the <a href="/sun/sun.html&edu=elem">Sun</a> in the main asteroid belt between the planets <a href="/mars/mars.html&edu=elem">Mars</a> and <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&edu=elem">Jupiter</a>. This lumpy object is about 96 km (60 miles) in diameter. It isn't a perfect sphere, though. Lutetia is 132 km (82 miles) across one way, but only about 76 km (47 miles) long in another direction. The European space probe <a href="/space_missions/robotic/rosetta_flyby_asteroid_lutetia_july_2010.html&edu=elem">Rosetta flew past Lutetia</a> in July 2010, and gave us our first good look at the asteroid.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.</em></small></p>Lunar eclipses are special events that only occur when certain conditions are met. First of all, the Moon must be in <a href="/the_universe/uts/moon3.html&edu=elem">full phase</a>. Secondly, the <a href="/sun/sun.html&edu=elem">Sun</a>, <a href="/earth/earth.html&edu=elem">Earth</a> and <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&edu=elem">Moon</a> must be in a perfectly straight line. If both of these are met, then the Earth's shadow can block the Sun's light from hitting the Moon. The reddish glow of the Moon is caused by light from the Earth's limb scattering toward the Moon, which is reflected back to us from the Moon's surface.<p><small><em>Image credit - Doug Murray, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida</em></small></p>New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide support for the hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed (shown in red) polar craters. Areas where polar deposits of ice imaged by Earth-based radar are shown in yellow.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory</em></small></p>The spinning vortex of <a href="https://www.windows2universe.org/saturn/saturn.html">Saturn</a>'s north polar storm resembles a giant deep red rose surrounded by green foliage in this false-color <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia14944.html">image</a> from NASA's <a href="https://www.windows2universe.org/missions/cassini.html">Cassini spacecraft</a>. The eye is 2,000 kilometers across with cloud speeds as fast as 150 meters per second. It is not known how long this newly discovered north-polar <a href="https://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/hurricane/hurricane.html">hurricane</a> has been active. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 419,000 kilometers from Saturn.<p><small><em>NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI</em></small></p>

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Explore Our Solar System

Solar System Formation

Solar system formation began billions of years ago, when gases and dust began to come together ...Read more

Sun

The Sun is the closest star to Earth and is the center of our solar system. A giant, spinning ...Read more

Planets

By the current count of astronomers, our solar system includes 8 planets and 5 dwarf planets. ...Read more

Dwarf Planets

In 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved a new classification scheme for ...Read more

Asteroids

Asteroids are small bodies that are believed to be left over from the beginning of the solar ...Read more

Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites

Meteors are streaks of light, usually lasting just a few seconds, which people occasionally ...Read more

Comets

Not too long ago, many people thought that comets were a sign that something terrible was ...Read more

Poles in Space

The areas around the North and South Poles of planets, moons, and even the Sun are often interesting ...Read more

Culture, Myth, and Arts

Make important cultural connections about the Sun, planets, and the Moon. ...Read more

Solar System Discoveries

Who discovered the planets? For many of the planets in the solar system, we'll never know! ...Read more

More about Our Solar System

Historical Events

5/30 7.5 magnitude quake hits Quetta, Pakistan in 1935
5/31 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits Peru in 1970
6/8 Giovanni Cassini, an Italian-French astronomer, was born on this date in 1625 Details

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Did you know?

Did you know that the physics of a spinning dancer and the formation of the solar system have something in common?

Do you know Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion?

 

Earth and Space Science Concept of the Day

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Moho
xMoho : The boundary between the crust and the mantle in the earth. This is a depth where seismic waves change velocity and there is also a change in chemical composition. Also termed the Mohorovicic' discontinuity after the Croatian seismologist Andrija Moh

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Research Highlights

Silver Tells a Story of Early Earth: Water Here Since Planet's Very Early Days

A new study shows that water might have been on Earth very early in its history. Before this new information, scientists thought water came to Earth from comets. Scientists have learned this by studying...Read more

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