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...Solar System. Since Greek times, it had been assumed that the Earth was the centre of the Solar System, with other objects orbiting around it. Galileo’s observation, that these moons were orbiting Jupiter and not Earth, contradicted that long-held view and instead supported Copernicus’ proposal that the Earth and other bodies moved round the Sun (heliocentricity,...

...solar system’s largest volcano – 22km high and more than 500km across its base. It began to grow over 3 billion years ago, but some lava flows high on its flanks appear to be as young as 2m years, judging from the relative lack of overlapping impact craters. Craters caused by asteroid impacts show how old a surface in the solar system is – the more craters the...

...solar system? Samuel Jackson, PhD student in The School of Physical Sciences digs into the research... [City lights - Central America. Elements of this image furnished by NASA] ​ Can a space rock from Costa Rica reveal the origin of water on Earth? Ross Findlay, a Cosmochemistry PhD Student in The School of Physical Sciences, explores different types of meteorites which...

...solar system evolve? These are the kind of questions that inspire John Zarnecki, Professor of Space Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Open University. In the course of his 30 year career, Zarnecki has taken part in several high profile space probe missions. In this album, he recalls the landing of the Huygens probe on Titan, explains why space has...

...Solar System...The innermost planets, Mercury and Venus, don’t have moons, but Mars has two. Go beyond Mars to the giant outer planets and the number of moons per planet skyrockets. Mars’ moons are small irregular-shaped bodies, perhaps captured asteroids, but Jupiter has three moons bigger than our own, a fourth that is almost as big, and 75 known small...

...Solar System. Transcript Image/ footage attribution and thanks to: Video of fireball meteor CC BY-SA 4.0 from 28 February 2021 at 9:55PM: https://ukmeteornetwork.co.uk/ Meteorite in ice: © Katherine Joy / The University of Manchester https://ukantarcticmeteorites.wordpress.com/ Fireball trajectory: © Google Earth Solar System schematic CC BY-SA 4.0: Universe Today...

...Solar System, yet remarkedly little is known about them. The existence of Phobos and Deimos remained hypothetical until August 1877 when Asaph Hall and American Astronomer finally found them within five days of one another. Upon discovery it became obvious why they had not been seen previously. They were both extremely small, with diameters of just ~12.4 km (Deimos) and...