Enceladus’s hot, gritty core may cook up ingredients for life
Saturn’s moon Enceladus seems to have a sandy core that warms water passing between the grains. This heating could help create conditions that are right for life
Why Hawking’s PhD thesis is now an internet-breaking inspiration
Millions rushed to freely access Stephen Hawking's early musings when they went online. More of the same would help ignite young minds everywhere, says Geraint Lewis
We now know more on the origins of weird duck-shaped comet 67P
One of the weirdest comets we’ve seen formed from tiny pebbles that trace back to the start of our solar system – which may tell us more about how planets are made
Boiling water on Mars could make the planet’s sand levitate
In Martian summer, the combination of warm temperatures and a thin atmosphere make any liquid water on the surface boil, which can let dust hover across the ground
We may have just seen the first comet from another solar system
An icy comet just hurtled past the sun on a strange path that suggests it came from outside our solar system, making it the first such interloper we've ever spotted
A 300-kilometre space rock has vanished since we saw it in 1995
Don’t feel so bad for losing your keys. Astronomers somehow lost a huge space rock first seen 22 years ago – and it’s far from the first cosmic object to go missing
The 5 biggest discoveries from the hunt for gravitational waves
Detecting gravitational waves has given us a new way to observe the universe by listening to ripples in space-time. Here are five of the biggest finds from LIGO
Astronaut wee could show us how the plumes on Enceladus work
The way spaceships vent urine and water may be a good stand-in for studying how jets of vapour escape the hidden ocean on one of Saturn’s icy moons
A gaggle of 7 moons keep Saturn’s rings from breaking apart
The gravity from seven of its moons stops Saturn’s bright outer ring from spreading out and dispersing into space, according to Cassini spacecraft measurements
Distant dwarf planet near Pluto has a ring that no one expected
The tiny world Haumea has a ring, the most distant we’ve found in our solar system. This may mean rings encircle other far-off worlds in the solar system