The scorching hot exoplanet WASP-121b may not be shredding any heavy metal guitar riffs, but it is sending heavy metals such as iron and magnesium into space. The distant planet's atmosphere is so hot that metal is vaporizing ...
Astronomy
Aug 1, 2019
5
687
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered 21 planets outside our solar system and captured data on other interesting events occurring in the southern sky during its first year of science. TESS has ...
Astronomy
Jul 26, 2019
0
205
Welcome to Saturn as you've probably never seen it. It's always awe-inspiring to see the clockwork motion of the heavens transpire in real time. In a slow motion universe, occultations give us the chance to see the cosmos ...
Space Exploration
Apr 4, 2019
0
81
Corresponding with the three-year anniversary of their announcement hypothesizing the existence of a ninth planet in the solar system, Caltech's Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin are publishing a pair of papers analyzing ...
Astronomy
Feb 27, 2019
39
1286
Astronomers have discovered a distant planet with an abundance of helium in its atmosphere, which has swollen to resemble an inflated balloon.
Astronomy
Dec 6, 2018
1
213
They say there's more than one way to skin an interstellar cat, and in astronomy there's more than one way to find alien exoplanets orbiting a distant star. With the recent shut-down of NASA's prolific Kepler mission and ...
Astronomy
Nov 21, 2018
0
12
The study of exoplanets—planets that lie outside our solar system—could help scientists answer big questions about our place in the universe, and whether life exists beyond Earth. But, these distant worlds are extremely ...
Astronomy
Jun 29, 2018
0
128
Veils of dust wrapped around distant stars could make it difficult for scientists to find potentially habitable planets in those star systems. The Hunt for Observable Signatures of Terrestrial Systems, or HOSTS, survey was ...
Astronomy
Apr 26, 2018
0
29
For centuries, human beings have wondered about the possibility of other Earths orbiting distant stars. Perhaps some of these alien worlds would harbor strange forms of life or have unique and telling histories or futures. ...
Astronomy
Apr 9, 2018
0
69
Scientists looking for life on distant planets are making plans to search non-Earth-like planets based on discoveries within our solar system that are challenging long-standing ideas about habitable zones, plate tectonics ...
Astronomy
Mar 28, 2018
14
618
