HS-ESS1-4

Use mathematical or computational representations to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system.

  1. Planets

    Picture This: Falling to a comet

    After a more than decade-long ride, a robotic lander has left its spacecraft and floated down onto the surface of a comet. From there it should begin scouting for hints at how our solar system formed.

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  2. Earth

    Explainer: Understanding ice ages

    Earth slowly wobbles, tilts and stretches (or contracts) as it orbits the sun. These changes may be fairly small and subtle. Still, their cumulative impacts can be huge — sometimes triggering the slow onset of an ice age or an abrupt thaw.

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  3. Planets

    Explainer: What are asteroids?

    Leftovers from the creation of the solar system, asteroids are space rocks that orbit the sun. Let’s hope the big ones never become meteorites.

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  4. Space

    Monster collision in space

    The smashup of four clusters of galaxies has sent a super-hot jet of charged particles spewing 2.5 million light-years into space!

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  5. Planets

    First mega-Earth found

    Astronomers are puzzled by Kepler-10c. This exoplanet is rocky like Earth — but as massive as Neptune. And that challenges their accepted ideas about how planets form.

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  6. Space

    Sun sibling spotted

    Separated at birth: Astronomers find a star 110 light-years away. It was born at the same time as our sun and from the same cloud of gas and dust.

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  7. Planets

    Distant planet may boast the longest year

    On a planet far, far away, a single pass around its sun may seem to last forever.

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  8. Planets

    Heavenly research

    Groundbreaking research in astronomy landed four high school seniors spots as finalists in the 2014 Intel Science Talent Search.

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  9. Planets

    Surprising rings circle comet-asteroid hybrid

    It’s too small to be a planet. Yet this planet wannabe still resembles Saturn-like giants. It’s the smallest solar system inhabitant to, like them, host rings of orbiting ice.

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  10. Space

    Galaxy drags trail of newborn stars

    Distant galaxy plows through cluster of others, with baby stars in tow

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  11. Space

    Star cluster rockets through space

    It’s the first time astronomers have ever detected a cluster of stars moving collectively at such speed.

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  12. Planets

    Double sunsets on a distant world

    Astronomers discover for the first time a planet circling two stars.

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