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How asteroids can help us understand our place in the cosmos

9 October 2023

With the recent launch of the Psyche mission and the return of samples from the asteroid Bennu, asteroids are all the rage – but if they're just big rocks floating in the void, why do scientists care so much about them?

Eris and Makemake might be hiding unexpected oceans of liquid water

21 September 2023

Dwarf planets aren’t expected to carry liquid water, but hints of surprising geological activity spotted with JWST indicate that some of them might have buried oceans

Could we tweak the solar system to make Pluto a planet again?

12 September 2023

Pluto officially lost its planethood in 2006, and this episode of Dead Planets Society is all about bringing it back by making it bigger, faster and better than ever

Dead Planets Society: #5 The Return of Pluto

11 September 2023

Join Leah and Chelsea as they belatedly mourn the loss of Pluto as a planet. Back in 2006, Pluto was demoted to “dwarf planet”, sparking widespread outrage… a decision the team is still determined to reverse.Special guests are Kathryn Volk of the University...

Dead Planets Society: #5 The Return of Pluto

11 September 2023

Join Leah and Chelsea as they belatedly mourn the loss of Pluto as a planet. Back in 2006, Pluto was demoted to “dwarf planet”, sparking widespread outrage… a decision the team is still determined to reverse.Special guests are Kathryn Volk of the University...

Homo floresiensis skull. Mould made from fragments of the skull of Homo floresiensis in Liang Bua cave, Flores, Indonesia. This newly discovered hominid species was found in Liang Bua cave in 2003. It was very small, measuring just over a metre tall, and is thought to be a descendant of Homo erectus that underwent island dwarfism - a process where isolated species that lack predators and are constrained by limited resources evolve to become smaller. It is thought to have become extinct around 12,000 years ago and therefore co-existed with modern humans (Homo sapiens).

The untold story of the curiously controversial Homo floresiensis dig

30 August 2023

The discovery of Homo floresiensis revolutionised the study of human evolution, but it was rocked by accusations of theft. Twenty years on, here's the full story behind the episode

Artist's impression of a brown dwarf binary.

Brown dwarf is locked in a destructive 2-hour orbit with a tiny star

9 August 2023

A “failed star” known as a brown dwarf is orbiting so tightly with a small star that both of them would fit inside our sun, and at least one of them won’t survive

iss067e189024 (July 16, 2022) --- The sun's rays begin to illuminate the Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 261 miles above Texas. iss067e189024 NASA ID: iss067e189024 iss067e189024 (July 16, 2022) --- The sun's rays begin to illuminate the Earth's atmosphere as the International Space Station flew into an orbital sunrise 261 miles above Texas. Date Created:2022-07-16 Center:JSC

When was the first sunrise on Earth?

19 July 2023

This is a question of how we define “Earth”, say our readers, but we also need to consider when light from the young sun could have pierced Earth’s atmosphere

Two-faced star seems to have one hydrogen side and one helium side

19 July 2023

A strange star more than 1300 light years away appears to have two sides with completely different compositions, and astronomers aren’t sure how it ended up that way

Distant planet may be the first known to share its orbit with another

19 July 2023

Exoplanet PDS 70b, a gas giant seven times the mass of Jupiter, appears to share an orbit with a ball of dust around the mass of Earth's moon, which could be forming a new planet