There’s a new kind of space object out there. The “ploonet.” This is a moon that escaped the gravity of a gas giant. These ploonets might explain the existence of comets around distant stars, shown here in an artist’s illustration.

China’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe gives a rare glimpse of the farside of the moon.

This is an artist’s view of what it might have looked like when the InSight was about to touch down on Mars. The craft successfully landed November 26 on the Red Planet.

Of 12 newly discovered moons of Jupiter (illustrated in bold, orange, blue and green), one orbits in the opposite direction of its neighbors (arrows show orbit direction). Four moons discovered by the spacecraft Galileo are also shown (purple).