ceres: a small planet in a giant solar system
Solar System
The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the masses that orbit it, most prominently its eight planets, of which Earth is one. The system formed about 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, creating the Sun and a protoplanetary disc from which the orbiting bodies assembled.
NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Reveals Its First Dwarf Planet Candidate in Our Solar System
In the outer reaches of our Solar System, beyond the orbit of Pluto, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has spotted 2026 ED138 — a large, bright trans-Neptunian object that scientists have identified as a dwarf planet candidate. The observations were announced today by the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center (MPC). If confirmed, ED138 would be among the largest dwarf planets ever discovered in this region of the Solar System.
Planets and Bright Stars
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— 2026 ED138
2026 ED138 is a large, bright trans-Neptunian object and dwarf planet candidate discovered in 2026 by scientists using data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin...
da-luce/astroterm
A planetarium for your terminal! Explore stars, planets, constellations, and more, all rendered right in the command line—no telescope required. ✨🪐
Eyes on the Solar System - NASA/JPL
Explore the 3D world of the Solar System. Learn about past and future missions.
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Dispossessed
A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart.
We need more tiny knowledge projects—here’s one
Crowdsourcing dynamic illustrations for a new astronomy book by Terry Tao and Tanya Klowden. The other day I was reading the sample chapter of a new book by Terence Tao and Tanya Klowden, on the so-called cosmic distance ladder. It’s a lovely piece of writing. The chapter tells the story of how Johannes Kepler, using data collected by Tycho Brahe, solved the puzzle of planetary motion. It puts us in the discoverers’ shoes: instead of working backwards from Kepler’s equations, we work forwards from the inexp
Space Now — the Solar System in 3D
A live 3D map of the Solar System in your browser: planets, moons, asteroids, comets, the ISS and thousands of Earth satellites — right where they are now. NASA JPL and CelesTrak data, updated daily.
How To Mobilise | Inea Lehner
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German polymath who was an astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and music theorist. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. The variety and impact of his work made Kepler one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural science, and modern science. He has been described as the "father of science fiction" for his novel Somnium.
The Coming Second Copernican Revolution | NOEMA
Astrobiology is rewiring our understanding of the intimate connection between life and planets as they appear in the universe.
Intelligence as a planetary scale process
Conventionally, intelligence is seen as a property of individuals. However, it is also known to be a property of collectives. Here, we broaden the idea of intelligence as a collective property and extend it to the planetary scale. We consider the ways in which the appearance of technological intelligence may represent a kind of planetary scale transition, and thus might be seen not as something which happens on a planet but to a planet, much as some models propose the origin of life itself was a planetary phenomenon. Our approach follows the recognition among researchers that the correct scale to understand key aspects of life and its evolution is planetary, as opposed to the more traditional focus on individual species. We explore ways in which the concept may prove useful for three distinct domains: Earth Systems and Exoplanet studies; Anthropocene and Sustainability studies; and the study of Technosignatures and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). We argue that explorations of planetary intelligence, defined as the acquisition and application of collective knowledge operating at a planetary scale and integrated into the function of coupled planetary systems, can prove a useful framework for understanding possible paths of the long-term evolution of inhabited planets including future trajectories for life on Earth and predicting features of intelligentially steered planetary evolution on other worlds.
