Visualize water's abundance across the solar system, and its relative rarity on Earth

A breakdown of where water is located on Earth and where it is most used worldwide

About 97% of Earth's water volume is in the oceans, 2% is trapped in polar ice caps and glaciers, and almost all of the remaining 1% is found in groundwater reserves. Roughly 70% of the easily accessible surface water in rivers and lakes—0.01% of all water—is used for agriculture, contributing to 20% of the world's population living in water-scarce areas and 2.1 billion people lacking access to clean drinking water.

Hypotheses on the origins of Earth's water, from comets and asteroids to magma oceans

Before Earth's atmosphere formed, any liquid water would have boiled off, preventing the accumulation of water early on to create today's oceans. Planetary scientists continue to debate whether this water was delivered later from comet or asteroid collisions or via reactions between iron oxide in Earth's molten surface and hydrogen gas from the planetary nebula.

A look at the concentrations of water in the human body and various organs

When we're born, about three-quarters of our bodies are composed of water, dropping to an average of 55-60% for the average adult. The lungs are over 80% water, the kidneys and spleen about 80%, and the heart and brain are approximately three-quarters composed of water—about the same moisture as a banana.

The thousands of objects orbiting Jupiter include 95 officially recognized moons

Jupiter's moons were first discovered on Jan. 7, 1610. They include Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system and larger than Mercury, Io, the most volcanically active moon, and Europa, which has a saltwater ocean.

A history of water on the moon

Is there water on the moon? In 2020, NASA's SOFIA mission confirmed the existence of water on the sunlit area of the lunar surface. Early astronomers mistook the dark spots on the Moon for oceans, but they are actually plains of dark, lava-produced...

A chemical overview of water, whose uncommon properties help sustain life on Earth

The uneven distribution of charge in water molecules allows them to bond to each other and to surfaces, enabling them to move against gravity, including up plants through roots and stems. These bonds also keep water in a liquid state over a wider temperature range and make it less dense as it freezes. This causes ice to float and form an insulating layer for underwater ecosystems, from which all life originated.

A map of every object in our solar system

The infographic from 2020 illustrates the complexity of our solar system, mapping over 18,000 objects including asteroids, comets, planets, and moons. Created by biologist Eleanor Lutz using data from NASA, it shows the non-linear distribution of objects due to the sun's gravitational pull. Objects nearer to the sun are more numerous, forming tighter orbits, while those farther out are fewer and more widely spaced.

About 99% of Earth's atmosphere is made of nitrogen and oxygen

At 78% and 21% respectively, the two elements are followed by argon with almost 1%. Trace amounts of other molecules, including greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide, and particulate matter such as dust and pollen, make up the remainder of the atmosphere's contents.

Europa's deep ocean may hold the conditions needed to support alien life

Beneath its frozen crust, Europa hides a salty ocean heated by tidal forces from Jupiter. This environment may resemble Earth's deep-sea hydrothermal vents and have allowed for the development of life over billions of years.

The moon's little-known, incredibly thin atmosphere

Earth's colorless, lifeless moon is often portrayed as devoid of an atmosphere. However, this fascinating article describes the very thin layer of gases floating above the surface of our celestial neighbor, a layer so thin it's technically known as...

The moon's gravity pulls water from Earth's poles to produce tides

By attracting all parts of the Earth to varying degrees based on their distance from it, the moon produces an overall pressure that drives water toward the opposite sides of the Earth along the Earth-moon axis, not unlike how squeezing a grape causes it to bulge. This creates high tides along the axis on opposite sides of the Earth and low tides along the perpendicular axis. Without significant water to displace, most lakes do not experience noticeable tides.

The Hubble Space Telescope made discoveries within our solar system and across the universe

The observatory helped confirm the presence of water on Jupiter's moon Europa, and uncovered seasonal variations on planets like Uranus. It also observed exoplanets and gravitational lensing, proved the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and detected the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Earth is the only planet in our solar system with fire

And while the sun seems like fire, and other planets have volcanoes, the sun and lava aren't the same thing as fire. To produce fire, a planet needs three ingredients: oxygen, fuel, and heat. No other planet has all three.

View the internal structure of the sun and its puzzling surrounding atmosphere

From the stellar core to the surface, the sun's density decreases from more than 10 times that of lead to 0.00001% that of air, while temperatures drop from millions to thousands. Temperatures increase from the sun's surface to the outermost layer of its atmosphere—the corona—a phenomenon whose explanation is still under investigation.

There may be 74,963 kinds of ice, resulting from water molecules rearranging themselves

The theoretical limit greatly expands the known types of ice, with type Iₕ being the most common on Earth and forming hexagonal crystals. The extreme environments of planets like Uranus and Neptune can create a variety of ice with unique structures and properties, as these conditions can reshape these crystals into new geometries.

Metallic hydrogen exists in Jupiter and Saturn due to high pressure and temperature

This state of hydrogen has metallic properties, including conductivity, which powers these planets' magnetic fields. First theorized in the 1930s, its existence was confirmed through indirect evidence before being created in a Harvard lab in 2017.

Visualizing the history of Saturn and its rings

Every 13 to 16 years, Saturn's rings become far less visible because its plane becomes exactly even with Earth's. This visual-rich essay explores the history of humanity's perception of Saturn, from Galileo's first sighting (and dubbing the rings "ears") to the idea that the rings won't last more than a few hundred millions years more. Explore this fascinating planet here.

An interactive look at Neptune, the distant planet

Dark, cold, and whipped by supersonic winds, Neptune is a gas giant made of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, and methane, and was the first planet discovered through mathematics rather than direct observation. It's also the smallest of the gas planets on the periphery of the solar system. Learn more about the last planet in the solar system through the NASA site.

There may be as many as 300 million potentially habitable planets in our galaxy

The estimate comes from a study using data from the Kepler space telescope—a project aimed at finding exoplanets—and considers exoplanets similar in size to Earth around sun-like stars. These have a greater potential to possess liquid water.

Why the ratios of helium isotopes are analyzed to investigate ocean circulation

Volcanic activity on the seafloor produces high ratios of helium-3 to helium-4, which can be tracked in ocean samples more easily than other elements because helium is nonreactive. Water from deep ocean currents can also be distinguished from air-exposed surface water sources by comparing these ratios, since atmospheric helium ratios are much lower.

Watch a visualization of how Earth's oceans impact its atmosphere, weather, and climate

Data from NASA satellites help view and explain global climate and weather patterns, such as El Niño and La Niña.

Enough sunlight hits Earth in just 90 minutes to power the planet for an entire year

Despite this, in 2023, only 5.1% of electricity in the US came from solar energy. Solar panel technology has nonetheless made significant advancements since the 19th century, largely due to NASA's efforts in the space race.

Jupiter may have affected the trajectory of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs

Despite its reputation as Earth’s cosmic shield, Jupiter’s gravity pulls more asteroids into Earth-crossing orbits. Simulations show that Earth experiences over three times more asteroid impacts because of Jupiter’s influence than if Jupiter didn’t exist.

A cup of coffee on Earth contains about 100 proton masses worth of dark matter

The estimate is based on Earth's location within the Milky Way and the dark matter cloud it resides in. Because scientists do not know the nature of dark matter, the mass may be accounted for with any number of dark matter particles of varying mass.

Earth's core is leaking precious metals, including gold

Earth's core, containing 99.999% of all known gold, is leaking trace amounts of precious metals into the mantle. Advanced isotopic methods have detected this leakage at volcanoes in Hawai'i, providing new insights into the movement of material beneath Earth's surface.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Poison ivy's rash-causing compound is found in the plant's roots, stem, and leaves—so coming into contact with any part of the plant can lead to rashes for the 85% of people who are allergic to it.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.