For most of human history our understanding of how planets form and evolve was based on the eight (or nine) planets in our solar system. But over the last 25 years, the discovery of more than 4,000 exoplanets, or planets ...
Astronomy
Jun 22, 2020
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240
Giant planets in our solar system and circling other stars have exotic clouds unlike anything on Earth, and the gas giants orbiting close to their stars—so-called hot Jupiters—boast the most extreme.
Astronomy
May 26, 2020
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400
Yale technology is giving astronomers a closer look at the atmosphere of a distant planet where it's so hot the air contains vaporized metals.
Astronomy
Apr 23, 2020
17
338
In the scorching atmosphere of exoplanet KELT-9b, even molecules are torn to shreds.
Astronomy
Jan 25, 2020
7
957
Scientists, including those from the University of Colorado Boulder, have finally scaled the solar system's equivalent of the Rocky Mountain range.
Astronomy
Jan 13, 2020
20
1076
Earth is doomed—but not for 5 billion years. Our planet will be roasted as our sun expands and becomes a red giant, but the exoplanet WASP-12b, located 600 light-years away in the constellation Auriga, has less than a thousandth ...
Astronomy
Jan 8, 2020
6
947
An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new "warm Jupiter" alien world transiting a main sequence late F-type star on an eccentric orbit. The newfound exoplanet, designated TOI-677 b, is about 20 percent ...
As planetary systems evolve, gravitational interactions between planets can fling some of them into eccentric elliptical orbits around the host star, or even out of the system altogether. Smaller planets should be more susceptible ...
Astronomy
Oct 30, 2019
3
323
A new study by McGill University astronomers has found that the temperature on the nightsides of different hot Jupiters is surprisingly uniform, suggesting the dark side of these massive gaseous planets have clouds made of ...
Astronomy
Aug 27, 2019
0
411
A colossal, head-on collision between Jupiter and a still-forming planet in the early solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago, could explain surprising readings from NASA's Juno spacecraft, according to a study this week ...
Space Exploration
Aug 14, 2019
11
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