Gravity is so tricky because it's actually rather complex. When there are just two objects — say, a massive star and a single little planet — the math is easy to work out. Once a planet finds itself in a stable orbit, it will remain in place for billions upon billions of years without deviation, the regular rhythms of its motion repeating like the gears of a great clockwork mechanism.
But throw a third object into the mix? Anything goes — chaos. As in, literal chaos. The problem of trying to predict the motion of three objects interacting through gravity has been notorious for centuries, with intellectual heavyweights through the ages trying to come up with a solution and failing. The problem is that with three objects, any little deviation or shift can lead to massive changes in a surprisingly short amount of time.
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Meet Gonggong, the first major body in the solar system with a Chinese name - CNET
Our solar system is made up of the sun, the eight known planets and the dozens of moons that circle those planets. But then there are innumerable asteroids, comets and dwarf planets wandering around. The most famous of this group is probably also the largest, Pluto.
Not far behind Pluto, the fifth-largest dwarf planet in the solar system hasn't had a name since it was discovered in 2007. It's just been hanging out beyond Neptune under the boring catalog designation 2007 OR10.
NASA's Next Low-Cost Planetary Science Missions Will Visit Venus or the Outer Solar System -
NASA is set to handle some unfinished business across the solar system, as evidenced by four possible missions it announced yesterday. They are the finalists in the space agency’s Discovery Program competition, a Shark Tank –like face-off in which labs and universities have proposed small, focused spacecraft to explore disparate worlds. More than a dozen ideas, each designed to cost less than $500 million, were submitted to NASA for consideration.
Two of the mission finalists—DAVINCI+ and VERITAS—target Venus for further study. If either was used, it would mark a belated return by NASA to Earth’s troubled next-door neighbor. The agency has not launched a dedicated Venus spacecraft since 1989—a painful delay for a generation of scientists keen to explore the world as methodically as we have investigated Mars.
Video compares asteroid sizes in our solar system and people are scared | indy100
It's hard to truly imagine the scale of something unless you compare it relatively… and that's exactly what someone's done with asteroids in our solar system.
Comparing the large floating rocks in our solar system to the size of New York City, MetaBallStudios posted the 3D comparative animation to YouTube earlier this month.
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Things take a dramatic turn when asteroid 99942 Apophis steps onto the scene with an average diameter of 370 meters.
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Astronomy student discovers 17 new planets, including Earth-sized world -- ScienceDaily
University of British Columbia astronomy student Michelle Kunimoto has discovered 17 new planets, including a potentially habitable, Earth-sized world, by combing through data gathered by NASA's Kepler mission.
Over its original four-year mission, the Kepler satellite looked for planets, especially those that lie in the "Habitable Zones" of their stars, where liquid water could exist on a rocky planet's surface.
The new findings, published in The Astronomical Journal , include one such particularly rare planet. Officially named KIC-7340288 b, the planet discovered by Kunimoto is just 1 ½ times the size of Earth -- small enough to be considered rocky, instead of gaseous like the giant planets of the Solar System -- and in the habitable zone of its star.
NASA Says Largest Volcano In Solar System Is the Size of Colorado
The largest known volcano in our solar system is Olympus Mons located on Mars. While it reaches about 13 miles above the planet's surface, this Volcano is about 327 miles at its base. That's roughly the same width as the state of Colorado.
In a 1970s NASA pamphlet that was shared on Reddit, the comparison was illustrated in a map drawing. The map shows the size of Colorado compared to the volcano on Mars. The pamphlet talks about, what was at the time, the upcoming Viking space probes which would reach the red planet in 1976. According to the pamphlet, Olympus Mons is "twice as broad and at least as high" as the largest volcanic formation on Earth, the Hawaiin Islands.
End of the world: Earth could be kicked out of solar system by wandering star | Science | News |
Scientists have discovered the chances of a wandering star travelling through the Milky Way that could knock Earth off its perch and cause widespread chaos. Researchers from Sharif University have calculated the odds to discover there is a one in 15,000 chance a wandering star could enter the solar system and shove Earth away from the Sun.
However, moving towards the centre of the galaxy where it is a lot more crowded, the experts stated the chances of a planet being batted away by a rogue star are 160 times higher.
NASA Selects 4 Possible Missions to Study Secrets of the Solar System | NASA
Happening on Twitter
Can a rogue star kick Earth out of the solar system? https://t.co/SdvuyKJ8d8 https://t.co/vXnc6cPFmC SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Wed Feb 26 14:34:03 +0000 2020
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