Look up at the sky if you're on a dark country hill at night. A faint band of light may appear arcing overhead, resembling milk spilled across the sky. The band was named via lacteal by the ancient Romans, which means "milky road" or "milky way."  Of course, the band of light you see isn't milk—a it's galaxy. A galaxy is a large group of stars that are clustered together in space. Our solar system, which consists of the sun, Earth,...

Dwarf planets were introduced to the world in 2006, when Pluto was demoted from planet status and reclassified as a dwarf planet. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognises Eris and Ceres as dwarf planets. What makes a dwarf planet different from a planet? They are nearly identical in most ways, but there is one significant difference: A dwarf planet has not "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit, which means it does not have gravitational dominance and shares its orbital space with other bodies of similar size. (This definition is being debated by astronomers and other experts.)
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Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, named after the Roman mythological king of the gods. The gas colossus Jupiter is a stormy enigma, wrapped in colourful clouds whipped by powerful winds that sweep beneath rings and moons. Jupiter is massive: it has more than twice the mass of all the other planets in the solar system combined. The Great Red Spot, its largest and most famous storm, is twice the width of the Earth. Jupiter's four large moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, helped to revolutionise the way we saw the universe — and our place in it — in 1610, when Galileo discovered them. These were the first observations of celestial bodies circling an object other than Earth, and they supported the Copernican theory that Earth was not the centre of the universe.
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Mercury is our solar system's smallest planet and the closest to the sun. The tiny planet has no moon and orbits the sun faster than any other planet, which is why the Romans named it after their swift-footed messenger god. Mercury was also known to the Sumerians at least 5,000 years ago. According to a site connected to NASA's MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) mission, it was frequently associated with Nabu, the god of writing. Mercury was...

The Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only known astronomical object to support life. While there is a lot of water all over the Solar System, only Earth has liquid surface water. The ocean covers roughly 71% of the Earth's surface, dwarfing polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of the Earth's surface is land, which consists of continents and islands. The surface layer of the Earth is made up of several slowly moving tectonic...

A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. Because matter has been compressed into a small space, gravity is extremely strong. This can occur when a star dies. People cannot see black holes because no light can escape. They are unnoticed. Space telescopes equipped with specialised tools can aid in the discovery of black holes. Special tools can observe how stars in close proximity to black holes behave differently than...