Related topics: stars · planets · solar system · jupiter

Webb's mid-infrared spectroscopy will reveal molecules, elements

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team continues to work its way through the 17 science instrument modes. This week they checked off numbers (5) NIRCam grism time series and (4) imaging time series, both used to study exoplanets ...

Webb telescope nearly set to explore the solar system

As NASA's James Webb Space Telescope moves through the final phases of commissioning its science instruments, we have also begun working on technical operations of the observatory. While the telescope moves through space, ...

Even stars doomed to die as supernovae can have planets

Ninety percent of all exoplanets discovered to date (there are now more than 5,000 of them) orbit around stars the same size or smaller than our sun. Giant stars seem to lack planetary companions, and this fact has serious ...

Pluto's orbit is surprisingly unstable

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the fabled "Ninth Planet" (or "Planet X") while working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The existence of this body had been predicted previously based on perturbations ...

From dust to planet: How gas giants form

Gas giants are made of a massive solid core surrounded by an even larger mass of helium and hydrogen. But even though these planets are quite common in the Universe, scientists still don't fully understand how they form. ...

Four new giant exoplanets detected

An international team of astronomers reports the detection of four new giant alien worlds as part of the HATSouth photometric survey. The newfound exoplanets are the size of Jupiter and received designations HATS-74Ab, HATS-75b, ...

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