A newborn star typically has a disk of gas and dust from which planets develop as the dust grains collide, stick together and grow. Stars older than about five million years lack evidence for these disks, however, suggesting ...
Astronomy
Dec 14, 2015
3
275
This year´s Geminid meteor display, the best of the annual meteor showers, will be visible from approximately the 7th to 17th December, peaking on the evening of the 14th. The meteors, or 'shooting stars', which are best ...
Space Exploration
Nov 24, 2015
0
64
The planet Mercury is being pelted regularly by bits of dust from an ancient comet, a new study has concluded. This has a discernible effect in the planet's tenuous atmosphere and may lead to a new paradigm on how these airless ...
Space Exploration
Nov 10, 2015
2
58
Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen and helium) and of course it is important: all known life forms require liquid water and its oxygen content. For over thirty years, astronomers have ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2015
0
119
A star is typically born with a disk of gas and dust encircling it, from which planets develop as dust grains in the disk collide, stick together and grow. These disks, warmed by the star to a range of temperatures above ...
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2015
3
57
A ring of dust 200 light years across and a loop covering a third of the sky: two of the results in a new map from the Planck satellite. Dr Mike Peel and Dr Paddy Leahy of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JCBA) presented ...
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2015
1
85
The space between stars is not empty—it contains a vast reservoir of diffuse material with about 5-10% of the total mass of our Milky Way galaxy. Most of the material is gas, but about 1% of this mass (quite a lot in astronomical ...
Astronomy
Jun 29, 2015
5
141
New work from Carnegie's Alan Boss offers a potential solution to a longstanding problem in the prevailing theory of how rocky planets formed in our own Solar System, as well as in others. The snag he's untangling: how dust ...
Astronomy
Jun 25, 2015
0
732
A group of Victoria-based scientists have made a discovery suggesting that the building blocks of planets may form earlier than previously thought. UVic astronomer, Mike Chen, presented the group's research at a Canadian ...
Astronomy
Jun 1, 2015
1
75
Our solar system, and other planetary systems, started as a disk of microscopic dust, gas, and ice around the young Sun. The amazing diversity of objects in the solar system today - the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets ...
Space Exploration
May 14, 2015
0
60
