#planets
Questions about “planets”.
11 articles
Is there really a planet where a day is longer than a year?
Right next door to Earth is a planet where our sense of time is turned upside down. There, the Sun rises in the west.
What does space smell like?
With no air in space, there is nothing to sniff. Yet astronauts describe “the smell of space” in remarkably similar terms.
Would Saturn float in water?
Drop the solar system’s second-largest planet into a giant bathtub: would it sink or bob? The more you think about it, the more fun the thought experiment gets.
Where did Earth’s water come from?
Oceans cover 70 percent of Earth’s surface. Where all that water came from, though, is one of the great open questions in science.
Why do stars twinkle?
Just as the nursery rhyme says, the stars in the night sky twinkle. Yet in that same sky, some lights barely twinkle at all.
Why is Pluto no longer a planet?
Generations of students learned nine planets, ending with Pluto. Why did a world that had been a planet for 76 years suddenly lose its place one day?
What is the tallest mountain in the solar system?
Mount Everest is the roof of our world, but across the solar system there are peaks that dwarf it. Other worlds hold mountains on a scale that is hard to imagine.
Is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot shrinking?
A giant red swirl floats on the face of Jupiter. This storm has raged for nearly two centuries, and lately it has been changing in a way no one can miss.
Why is Uranus tipped on its side?
Every planet in the solar system spins like a top as it circles the Sun. Every planet, that is, except one, which rolls along lying flat on its side.
Are sunsets on Mars blue?
Mars is known as the Red Planet. When a rover photographed the Sun setting in its sky in color, the scene it captured looked nothing like a sunset on Earth.
What is the largest moon in the solar system?
Our Moon looks impressively large in the night sky. But across the whole solar system, where does the biggest moon of all circle its planet?