The Perseid meteor shower — one of the best and brightest of the year — is set to peak in the late hours of Tuesday into Thursday, August 11 into 13. This is one of the most anticipated showers of the year, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. This year,…
ESA's Cluster mission, launched in June 2000, was designed to study the Earth's magnetosphere, which protects the planet from impacts by cosmic particles but also interacts with them, generating spectacular phenomena like auroras. As the mission enters its…
A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2020 PA flew past Earth at a distance of 0.15 LD / 0.00039 AU (58 343 km / 36 252 miles) on August 1, 2020. This is the 49th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year. 2020 PA was first…
The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) attached to Mars Express captured a mysteriously long, thin cloud over the 20 km (12 miles) high Arsia Mons volcano on July 17 and 19, 2020. According to ESA, the cloud is a recurrent feature made up of water ice and is influenced…
This stunning meteor overflew the south of Spain at about 00:31 UTC on July 29, 2020 (02:31 local time), and was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, which is being conducted by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN). The meteoroid hit the…
A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2020 OY4 will flyby Earth at 0.11 LD / 0.00028 AU (41 887 km / 26 027 miles) at 00:13 UTC on July 28, 2020. This is the 48th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year. It is also the…
NASA's Juno Jupiter probe has captured the first images of the north pole of Ganymede– the largest moon in the solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic field. During a close flyby of Jupiter in December 2019, Juno mapped the north polar regions of…
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced its new mission — Comet Interceptor — is expected to launch in 2028. The mission aims to investigate a "pristine" comet or other interstellar object that is only just starting its journey into the inner Solar…
A green fireball streaked across New South Wales, Australia, at around 07:36 UTC (17:36 LT) on July 13, 2020. The American Meteor Society (AMS) received four reports about the event. Many watchers were stunned by the view as the meteor came down during a…
A new study suggests that the Moon is much younger than what was previously thought– about 85 million years younger. Lunar rock samples collected on the Apollo missions are not old enough to confirm the normally accepted 4.51 billion-year for the Moon's age,…
