Q&A with Earl Maize, Cassini project manager (members only)

The final days before NASA’s New Horizons probe barrels in on its next destination on Jan. 1, 2019, should prove eventful, with scientists trying to sort out whether a distant mini-world detected by the Hubble Space Telescope more than three years ago may actually be a swarm of icy objects.

Japanese scientists released Wednesday the first views of Venus captured by the Akatsuki spacecraft after arriving in orbit this week, setting the stage for regular observations of the planet’s blistering atmosphere over the next few years.

With meandering canyons four times as long, and twice as deep, as the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest, the crust of Pluto’s moon Charon may have been shaped by violent eruptions and geology once thought improbable for a small body in the far depths of the solar system, scientists said Thursday.