The exploration of space has been of interest to people since Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) discovered and described the true nature of the solar system. About 100 years ago, Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)...

The first artificial satellites launched into Earth orbit were part of an international scientific program called the International Geophysical Year. They returned data on Earth and its space environment. Before long, the United States and the Soviet...

A timeline of Solar System exploration listed by date of spacecraft launch. Missions in italics are unfinished, i.e. have not yet been designated as successes or...

Researchers have isolated two components of the solar system's surroundings: Local Fluff is a cloud of warm gas which surrounds the solar system and its environs; and the Local Bubble extends as far as 300 light-years from the sun and supplys the sun interstellar...

Iapetus's ridgeway Those space probes in full THE mysteries of other solar systems, and indeed the whole universe, are one thing (see previous story). But the past few days have also seen developments in the study of Earth's backyard. It has...