outer planets
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New Moons Discovered Around Uranus and Neptune
Astronomers found a new moon orbiting Uranus, as well as two around Neptune. The tiny satellites appeared as faint specks in the outer reaches of the solar system following hours of ground-based observations. Using observatories in Chile and Hawaii, Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, first spotted the Uranian moon on…
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Then and Now: Our Earliest Close-Ups of the Planets Compared to Today’s Best Shots
For centuries, astronomers were limited to ground-based observations of the planets, but now we use spacecraft to capture close-up views of our neighboring worlds. Excitingly, our views of solar system planets have been getting progressively better over the decades, as these images attest. The dawn of the Space Age finally made it possible for humankind…
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The Webb Telescope Finally Snaps Saturn’s Luminous Rings
The Webb Space Telescope has taken an image of the ringed planet Saturn, completing its photo album of our solar system’s gas giants.
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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Spinning Faster
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope keeps an eye on Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a 16,093 km-wide storm system that has been swirling for at least 190 years and possibly much longer. Recent data from the telescope indicates that the spot’s outer winds have picked up speed in the past decade.