Imagine a planet with two drains, one in the north and the other in the south. Each drain…
Following its wonderfully successful missions to Mars, Venus and Titan, Europe is going to explore Mercury, the closest…
Mars is often regarded as an arid world covered by deserts. However, like Earth, the Red Planet has…
Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the largest and most fascinating satellites in the Solar System. Unfortunately, its…
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to land on an alien world more than 1.2…
Venus, the second planet from the Sun, is about to receive its first European visitor. On 11 April,…
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, so it is always fairly close to the Sun in…
Neptune was discovered in 1846 by Johann Galle, an astronomer at the Berlin Observatory. Galle knew where to…
Pluto was discovered in 1930 by 24 year-old Clyde Tombaugh, who was using a special machine to compare…
Mercury is the first planet from the Sun. It is not very easy to observe since it is…
Modern telescopes have revealed hundreds of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, in a region known as…
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1781. Uranus lies…
Beyond the asteroid belt is Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun. Everything about Jupiter is large. It…
All of the planets travel around the Sun in a counter-clockwise direction – as seen from above Earth’s…
The Solar System is made up of the Sun and all of the smaller objects that move around…
On 14 January 2005 ESA’s Huygens probe made an historic landing on the surface of Saturn’s giant satellite,…
The surface of Mars is now as dry as a desert, but new results from ESA’s Mars Express…
ESA’s Venus Express mission will be the first spacecraft in more than 10 years to visit our nearest…
The European spacecraft Venus Express has been successfully placed into a trajectory that will take it on its…
Due for launch on board a Russian Soyuz rocket on 9 November, Venus Express will be the first…
A new chapter in the exploration of Mars is about to begin. After a long delay, the MARSIS…
Europe has reached the Moon, and ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft is beginning to send back spectacular images of Earth’s…
Among the many scientific achievements of Huygens was the first ever recording of sounds sent back from another…
History was made earlier today when ESA’s Huygens probe successfully landed on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Signals received…
450 years ago, a Dutch astronomer named Christiaan Huygens discovered a large moon orbiting Saturn. It was eventually…
One of the most exciting chapters in the history of space exploration is about to begin. After a…
Up to three times a year, the full Moon’s bright face slowly changes to a dark orange colour.…
Even with the largest telescopes it is very hard to see much detail on Mars. In the late…
The Cassini-Huygens mission, involving ESA, NASA and the Italian Space Agency, has changed many of our ideas about…
The Moon has been circling the Earth for more than four billion years. But where did it come…
