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

Astronomers say an object observed speeding through our solar system last month has an unexpected cigar-like shape and originated from another star, making it the first confirmed interstellar asteroid.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has continued its survey of the dwarf planet Ceres this year, discovering rock-bound ice hidden just beneath the airless world’s rugged surface and a handful of icy outcrops inside craters in the northern hemisphere, raising hopes that Ceres could have once held a buried habitable ocean of liquid water.

A new flyby mission selected by the European Space Agency this week for launch in 2028 will be the first to intercept a new comet or interstellar object fresh from the frozen depths of the outer solar system, or beyond.