Planet news, features and articles

Mars will appear to make an ultraclose approach to the moon on Sunday, after Jupiter had a turn earlier this week. Here's how to get the best view of the rare conjunction.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has discovered a giant volcanic hot spot on the surface of Jupiter's hellish moon Io. The eruptions in this area are chucking out six times the energy being produced by all Earth's power stations, researchers say.

Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to orbit the sun.

The climate on such a world must be beyond bizarre.

Mars' southern hemisphere absorbs a lot of the sun's energy during the Red Planet's spring, and that may be causing Mars' dust storms, a new study suggests.

Worlds will align for a "planetary parade" in January, with four bright and easily visible to the naked eye. But an even better view arrives in February and March. Here's what you need to know.

The record-breaking winds are circling the nearby "puffy" exoplanet WASP-127b, and are traveling six times faster than the alien world spins.

Data collected by NASA's InSight lander suggest that ancient internal processes are responsible for the "Martian dichotomy" that splits the Red Planet into two distinct halves.

Pluto may have got romantic to capture its largest moon, colliding and engaging in a passionate but icy 10 hour kiss with Charon billions of years ago.