Nearly 20 years ago, astronomers observed a massive cloud of fine dust particles around a young star located just 63 light-years away from Earth. In recent observations from the Webb Space Telescope, however, the dust cloud had mysteriously vanished.
For more than five years, a pair of spacecraft have been traveling through the solar system to reach the innermost planet Mercury and observe its extreme conditions. During its complex journey, the BepiColombo mission ran into a problem that’s preventing its thrusters from operating at full power, potentially…
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington; Insider
On October 1, 2021, a pair of small spacecraft got their first good look at the closest planet to the Sun, revealing the strange process through which Mercury produces its own auroras.
Stellarium/NASA/Insider
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.
