Scientists have studied our solar system, which is home to eight major planets and more than 400 known moons orbiting six of them, to understand the new phase of the moon formation observed around ...

Eons ago, in the frigid depths of our solar system, a dramatic collision occurred between two icy worlds. Instead of a catastrophic smash-up, the two bodies “kissed,” merging temporarily like a ...

In contrast, the recent Brown study utilizes “micro-analytical techniques,” focusing on individual sulfide grains, Dottin ...

The universe has quasi-moons, mini-moons, and moonlets, but no official definition of what counts as a moon.

Scientists have gone back and forth about explanations for the moon's formation for decades, with the general consensus being that it formed during some type of cosmic collision between Earth and a ...

Billions of years ago, so the theory goes, something around the size of Mars smacked into Earth, spewing a whole bunch of dirt into space that eventually coalesced to form the Moon. This is called the ...

The conventional explanation for the moon's formation is that an enormous rock smashed into the nascent Earth and created it as a result. A new theory challenges the particulars of how events may have ...

The Moon's formation may not just have smashed Earth -- it may have stretched our planet into a potato for millions of years afterwards. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in ...

Recent research has shed light on the role of the Moon’s largest impact crater in explaining the stark visual and geological differences between the Moon’s near side, which faces Earth, and its far ...

Astronomers have taken a step towards understanding how the Moon might have formed out of a giant collision between the early Earth and another massive object 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists led by ...

A laser-based ice drill can bore deep, narrow channels into ice while keeping both mass and energy requirements lower than ...