solar system

Amazing what a mere collection of water and ice and a few rocks can turn into. Saturn's rings are one of the most incredible sights in the night sky, and in space overall. Though their make up is unremarkable, since the 1970s when the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft visited the system and gave us our first close-up look. 

What's more amazing is that unlike many other celestial bodies in our universe, that we need to physically reach in order to get a clear picture of, Saturn is close enough that we can get images like those below.

Though downgraded to dwarf planet status, Pluto has been on the comeback trail of late. Many issues arose with the reclassification in 2006, including that only 424 of the 9000 members of the international organization in charge of making such decisions voted. In addition, immediately after the resolution, hundreds of planetary scientists petitioned against the changed classification. The problem began when the body changed the definition of what constitutes a planet, and due to Pluto lacking several of these features, it was demoted.

A recent mission to Pluto by NASA called New Horizons, recently gave us our closest and clearest look of Pluto and the surrounding planetary bodies in its area and orbit. 

...And no, it's not Pluto (RIP). Researchers have found evidence that there may very well be a ninth planet, aptly named "Planet Nine" or "Planet X," in our solar system that's about the size of Neptune. 

The catch? No one has been able to find it. Yes, you read that correctly. This hypothetical planet is so far away that it takes between 10,000 and 20,000 earth-years for it to complete a full rotation around the sun.

Sadly, no scientist has been able to concretely prove the existence of such planet; they've simply predicted its existence based off of the similarly peculiar orbits of several objects in the Kuiper belt.

Still, we're going to hold onto hope that Planet Nine exists because that's just straight-up cool as hell.

We never thought a Mars rover could make us get a little teary-eyed, but here we are. It was announced that the well-loved robot Opportunity finally bit the dust on Wednesday after a remarkable almost-15-year run. The scrappy rover lost power during a dust storm last June, prompting NASA's decision to pull the plug on the entire mission. Interestingly, Oppy's twin Spirit passed away in a similar manner on the other side of the planet after a five-year run. 

To aid the grief process, the internet has been meme-ing Opportunity, and we're here for it.

China is known for its environmental struggles. It consumes almost half the worlds coal and its smog is so polluted, it's as dangerous as smoking a cigarette. 

Luckily, China is quickly taking a new direction and are coming in the lead. They are more focused now on clean energy. China has decided to go with solar energy panels and have slowly started to move away from coal.

They want to be known as the innovators for a better and cleaner future. So what makes China's solar so different from all the rest? 

These surprisingly realistic tiny planets and stars have been 3D printed.