About the Planets - Science@NASA
About the Planets. The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There are five officially recognized dwarf ...
The Effects of Climate Change - Science@NASA
Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth’s climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.
What Is Climate Change? - NASA Science
Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term. Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the mid-20th century are driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, […]
Mars Facts - Science@NASA
Mars has a dense core at its center between 930 and 1,300 miles (1,500 to 2,100 kilometers) in radius. It's made of iron, nickel, and sulfur. Surrounding the core is a rocky mantle between 770 and 1,170 miles (1,240 to 1,880 kilometers) thick, and above that, a crust made of iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium.
Hubble Images - NASA Science
Flip through Hubble's numerous Flickr albums and see astronauts at work in space, behind the scenes of mission operations, and Hubble's iconic images from nebulae to gravitational lens. M57, or the Ring Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a sun-like star. The tiny white dot in the center of the nebula is the star’s hot core ...
Solar System Exploration - NASA Science
7. Room to Breathe. Our solar system has many worlds with many types of atmospheres. 8. Ring Worlds. The four giant planets – and at least one asteroid – have rings. 9. Getting Out There. More than 300 robotic spacecraft have left Earth's orbit, and …
Stars - NASA Science
Stars form in large clouds of gas and dust called molecular clouds. Molecular clouds range from 1,000 to 10 million times the mass of the Sun and can span as much as hundreds of light-years. Molecular clouds are cold which causes gas to clump, creating high-density pockets. Some of these clumps can collide with each other or collect more matter ...
Hubble Skymap - NASA Science
The Hubble Skymap puts the night sky at your fingertips any time of day. Roam the Milky Way to find a selection of galaxies, stars, nebulae and more, and click for a Hubble's-eye-view of each object. To explore the skymap, scroll, double click, or pinch/swipe to zoom in and out. Roll over an icon to see the object, click to zero in, and click ...
Solar System Facts - Science@NASA
Our solar system includes the Sun, eight planets, five officially named dwarf planets, and hundreds of moons, and thousands of asteroids and comets. Our solar system is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with two major arms, and two minor arms. Our Sun is in a small, partial arm of the Milky Way called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur ...
Mercury Facts - Science@NASA
Oct 16, 2017 · Size and Distance. With a radius of 1,516 miles (2,440 kilometers), Mercury is a little more than 1/3 the width of Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Mercury would be about as big as a blueberry. From an average distance of 36 million miles (58 million kilometers), Mercury is 0.4 astronomical units away from the Sun.