For the next half-century, Earth will have a new celestial companion. A small asteroid, officially designated 2025 PN7, has been confirmed as a quasi-satellite—a rare type of near-Earth object that ...

Earth has a new moon-like object, known as a "mini-moon," orbiting our planet. This phenomenon is a temporary capture of ...

When the moon is nearly between Earth and the sun, one side of the moon faces the sun, and that side is illuminated, but the side the Earth sees is dark. This is called the new moon phase of the lunar ...

Conventionally, the moon is thought to have formed during one big impact, but a three-impact model might make more sense ...

"The most convincing scenario is that most of the building blocks of Earth and Theia originated in the inner solar system. Earth and Theia are likely to have been neighbors." ...

“Impact flashes on the moon are very common,” University of Colorado Boulder astrophysical and planetary sciences professor Paul Hayne said. “In fact, they happen more or less every night, and it’s a ...

"During the early solar system's game of cosmic billiards, Earth was struck by a neighbor,” said Dauphas. “It was a lucky shot. Without the moon's steadying influence on our planet's tilt, the climate ...

About 4.5 billion years ago, a colossal impact between the young Earth and a mysterious planetary body called Theia changed everything—reshaping Earth, forming the Moon, and scattering clues across ...