Watch the king of the planets turn on its throne

Keep the diary free towards the end of May to witness another very close conjunction between two of the major planets in the Solar System.

A record 10.5-hour thruster firing nudged the solar-powered Juno spacecraft’s orbit just enough to avoid a mission-ending eclipse.

The Gemini Planet Imager instrument has discovered and photographed its first planet. Dubbed 51 Eridani b, the body is a methane-enshrouded gas giant that is the most Jupiter-like exoplanet ever directly imaged, in a planetary system just 20 million years old. It may hold the key to understanding how large planets form in the swirling accretion discs around stars.