astronomy
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Mercury Floats in Front of the Sun in New Images From the Solar Orbiter
On January 3, the Solar Orbiter spotted Mercury passing in front of the Sun. The transit of the small, dark orb puts the scale of our solar system into sharp relief.
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Whoa: Astronomers Find New Ring System in the Outer Solar System
Researchers observing a background star pass behind Quaoar, a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, found that the distant object has a ring system unlike any previously found in our solar system.
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Suck It, Saturn: Jupiter Now Officially Has Most Moons in the Solar System
Jupiter is a superstar in our solar system. It’s the biggest, it’s wonderfully gassy, and it now has the most documented moons, clocking in at 92 natural satellites. Its new count became official on January 20, 2023, when the Minor Planet Centre recognised the last of a batch of 10 newly identified moons. Jupiter is stealing…
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Watch Four Planets Spin Around a Star 130 Million Light-Years Away
Astronomical phenomena tend to occur over timespans that dwarf our human scale — a galaxy changes over millions and billions of years, not decades. But a new timelapse of observations of a distant star system shows its clockwork motion over just 12 years, packed into only a few seconds.