Jonti Horner

For the past few days, the media has been abuzz with one of the most peculiar astronomical observations for many years.

Watching meteors in the night sky can be fun, although typically you only see a few flashes an hour. But there are certain times of the year when you can see many more – events known as meteor showers.

A detailed study of comets orbiting the young nearby star Beta Pictoris was published yesterday in the journal Nature, and it reveals striking similarities to the comets found in our solar system.

As Earth orbits the sun, it continually ploughs through dust and debris left behind by passing comets and asteroids. On any night of the year, a keen-eyed observer might see five, or even ten, meteors (shooting stars) per hour. But over the next week, that number will rise markedly, as Earth moves through the centre of a stream of debris left behind by the most famous of all comets, comet 1P/Halley.

Over the past two decades, almost 1,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting distant stars – but Dutch astronomers have determined for the very first time just how fast one of those exoplanets is spinning on its axis.

The more we learn about the formation and evolution of our solar system, the more we realise it was far from a sedate, gentle process.