Three planets that are larger than Jupiter have been found orbiting the star, Upsilon Andromedae. Astronomers from four research institutions have confirmed this observation. This site is a news release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The earth's diameter is 12,756.3 km and its revolution period is 1 year. You probably knew the last fact, but most likely not the first. The Web site Absolutely Astronomy can provide this and a large amount of other facts about planets, moons, stars, constellations, messier objects, nebulas, and galaxies. Visitors can browse via the pull-down menus or search by a particular question. The basic...

The Astronomy 161-The Solar System online course is maintained by the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. The twenty two chapters cover everything from time and scale in the universe, development of modern astronomy, the planets, asteroids, meteors, and everything in between. Text, photographs, illustrations, and movies, help users understand the topics along with a...

The California and Carnegie Planet Research website presents the University of California Berkeley and the Carnegie Institution of Washington's investigations of planets around other stars. In the Public link, users can find easily understandable details on the diversity of exoplanets and on planet detection techniques. Researchers can find more technical details in the Scientific Research Site...

The CosmicQuest interactive learning Web site was developed and produced by Educational Web Adventures as part of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Three main activities are included on the site, the first of which is a Field Guide to the Universe. Here, students can explore fun facts and view interesting photographs of planets, spacecraft, and astronomers. Another activity lets kids design a...

Provided by the US Geological Survey Astrology Research Program, the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature Web site contains nearly everything you ever wanted to know about naming the physical features of planets. The site provides a history of the activity, details how names are approved, and of course contains an exhaustive list. For example, did you know that an Apollo 16 astronaut named a...

The Hubble Space Telescope has returned an image of what is possibly the first planet outside our solar system. TMR-1C, about 450 light years away in the constellation Taurus, appears to have been "flung away from the vicinity of a newly forming pair of binary stars," as evidenced by a luminescent filament leading from the "planet" back to the stars. "Susan Terebey of the Extrasolar Research...

The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), located in the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), concentrates on research dealing with the current state, evolution, and formation of the solar system. At the website, users can find a technical report about the Forum on the Impact Cratering Process, a summary of the Oxygen in the Solar System Initiative, and other resources regarding the...

Scheduled for launch in 2003, two NASA rovers will set out to explore Mars and determine whether water ever existed on the planet. This is the home page of the Mars rovers, and it has a great deal of information about the specifications and technology of the missions. Detailed descriptions of the scientific instruments equipped on each rover are provided. Color diagrams show the main components of...

For the past thirty years, NASA has sponsored numerous highly ambitious space exploration missions that have dramatically expanded the existing knowledge base about various planetary bodies throughout our universe. The agency's New Horizons project intends to begin a mission to explore Pluto and Charon sometime in the near future, and the hope is that the project would also explore a variety of...