News tagged with dwarf planet

Related topics: solar system

Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Astronomers find extreme weather on an alien world

(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has observed extreme brightness changes on a nearby brown dwarf that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. Because old ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 12, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Faraway Eris is Pluto's twin: Dwarf planet sized up accurately as it blocks light of faint star

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have measured the diameter of the dwarf planet Eris by catching it as it passed in front of a faint star. This was seen by telescopes in Chile, including the TRAPPIST telescope ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 26, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Astronomers find ice and possibly methane on Snow White, a distant dwarf planet

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the dwarf planet 2007 OR10—nicknamed Snow White—is an icy world, with about half its surface covered in water ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 22, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Habitable planets and white dwarfs

(PhysOrg.com) -- The search for habitable planets similar to Earth has routinely focused around active nuclear burning stars. However, in a recently published paper by Eric Agol from the University of Washington, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 22, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (21) | comments 21 | with audio podcast report

Dwarf planet Haumea shines with crystalline ice

The fifth dwarf planet of the Solar System, Haumea, and at least one of its two satellites, are covered in crystalline water-ice due to the tidal forces between them and the heat of radiogenic elements. This ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 12, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (14) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Mysterious Planet-like Object Challenges Simple Definition, Reveals Its Surprising Identity

(PhysOrg.com) -- A mysterious planet-like object orbiting a not-quite-starlike "brown dwarf" is the most recent enigma discovered by astronomers with their ever-more powerful telescopes. Kamen Todorov, a graduate ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 06, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (24) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Hubble discovers another moon around Pluto

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite, temporarily designated P4, was uncovered in a Hubble survey ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jul 20, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (15) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Six new planets discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has discovered six diverse new planets, from 'shrunken-Saturns' to 'bloated hot Jupiters', as well a rare brown dwarf with 60 ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 14, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (30) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Watery, rocky planets may be common in the Milky Way

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers have discovered compelling evidence that rocky planets are commonplace in our Galaxy. Leicester University scientist and lead researcher Dr Jay Farihi ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 13, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (25) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Many billions of rocky planets in the habitable zones around red dwarfs in the Milky Way

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new result from ESO’s HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 28, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (18) | comments 37 | with audio podcast

'This Planet Tastes Funny,' According to Spitzer

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered something odd about a distant planet -- it lacks methane, an ingredient common to many of the planets in our solar system.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 21, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (25) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Extending the habitable zone for red dwarf stars

Scientists have long thought that planets had to orbit very close to small and dim red dwarf stars in order to be warm enough for life. New research challenges that assumption.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 24, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Dwarf planet mysteries beckon to New Horizons

(PhysOrg.com) -- At this very moment one of the fastest spacecraft ever launched -- NASA's New Horizons -- is hurtling through the void at nearly one million miles per day. Launched in 2006, it has been in ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 05, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (22) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

A star with spiral arms

For more than four hundred years, astronomers have used telescopes to study the great variety of stars in our galaxy. Millions of distant suns have been catalogued. There are dwarf stars, giant stars, dead ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 01, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 17 | with audio podcast