Solar System

The top news about what's going on in the cosmic neighborhood—from planet nine to the sun, and everything in between.

Latest in Solar System

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reobserved interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Nov. 30, with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument.

Hubble Space Telescope caught a second glimpse of comet 3I/ATLAS

Nov. 19 image obtained by Pau Montplet from Breda (Girona) using a C6 telescope at f:7. Original image is in the lower right inset, while a false color 0.6º wide Larson-Sekanina filtered image at 9º shows 3I in negative to remark the antitail pointing to the subsolar point, and several jets getting out from the false nucleus. Two additional arrows mark wavy structures in the jets. Image resolution is 0.7 arcsec/pix. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2511.19112

Infamous 3I/ATLAS comet is covered in ice volcanoes, surprising astronomers

Martian landscape taken by rover

How to tell time on Mars

Comet passing above auroras on Earth

ISS astronauts photograph two comets soaring over Earth’s auroras

Artist illustration of satellite above Earth's auroras monitoring the sun

Geomagnetic superstorm shrunk Earth’s protective plasmasphere

This artist’s impression shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) around another star.

A star unleashed a planet-destroying flare

Comet 3I/ATLAS streaks across a dense star field in this image captured by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South at Cerro Pachón in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab. This image is composed of exposures taken through four filters — red, green, blue and ultraviolet. As exposures are taken, the comet remains fixed in the center of the telescope’s field of view. However, the positions of the background stars change relative to the comet, causing them to appear as colorful streaks in the final image. See a version of the image where the stars have been “frozen” here. These observations of Comet 3I/ATLAS were conducted during a Shadow the Scientists program hosted by NSF NOIRLab. A full recording of the session can be found here.

3I/Atlas isn’t deep space aliens and didn’t ‘change color’

Dark lines of discolored dust on slopes of Martian mountain

On Mars, meteorites can cause miles-long dust slides

Artist illustration of two ESCAPADE satellites orbiting Mars

Meet Blue and Gold: NASA’s first twin satellites bound for Mars

a full moon rises over the ocean

Brightest supermoon of 2025 lights up the sky this week

By Laura Baisas

the planet saturn

November Stargazing: Supermoon number two, meteors galore, and ‘naked’ Saturn.

Close up of solar flare on sun

Scientists prepare for the next Carrington Event

A striking photograph of a bright, full moon against a dark, deep blue night sky, partially obscured by dark, dramatic clouds. The moon is intensely bright, giving the scene an ethereal glow.

Yes, the moon really can affect your sleep

By Clarissa Brincat

Interstellar dust in the Carina Nebula.

Life on Earth may have come from cosmic dust

A stream of plasma moves from the sun toward Earth. On its way, the plasma hits four, square spacecraft, which are arranged in a triangular-pyramid formation. The spacecraft closest to the sun is in the center of a large, aluminum sail.

Earth has a space tornado problem

a pink, green, yellow aurora over mountain and clouds

18 jaw-dropping images from the 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards

By Popular Science Team

An artist’s impression of how the aurora might appear in the sky above the Perseverance rover.

Aurora over Mars gives Red Planet a green glow

By Laura Baisas

a mock up of a boarding pass for a flight during artemis 2

NASA’s next trip around the moon could have your name on it

By Laura Baisas

Lunar rover concept going up hill with US flag mounted on rear

NASA offers $155,000 to design moon tires

An artist illustration of a small planet-sized object striking Mars during its early years.

Inside Mars, a ‘rocky road’ mantle reveals a violent past