(Phys.org)—When astronomers discovered planet GJ 1214b circling a star more than 47 light-years from Earth in 2009, their data presented two possibilities: Either it was a mini-Neptune shrouded in a thick ...
Feb 19, 2013
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Far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, where the sun is a pinprick of light not much brighter than other stars, a vast swarm of icy bodies circles the solar system. Astronomers call it the "Oort Cloud," ...
Feb 09, 2013
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(Phys.org)—An international team of astronomers has used HiCIAO (High Contrast Instrument for the Subaru Next Generation Optics) to observe a disk around the young star SAO 206462. They succeeded in capturing ...
Dec 20, 2012
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(Phys.org)—French researchers Sébastien Charnoz and Aurélien Crida have proposed in a paper published in the journal Science that moons that orbit some of the planets in our solar system came about due to ...
Nov 30, 2012
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(Phys.org)—Studying planets around other stars will be the focus of the new small Science Programme mission, Cheops, ESA announced today. Its launch is expected in 2017. Cheops – for CHaracterising ExOPlanets ...
Oct 22, 2012
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Asteroid 2012 TC4 will give Earth a relatively close shave on October 12, 2012, passing at just a quarter of the distance to the orbit of the Moon. Discovered by Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii just last ...
Oct 12, 2012
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Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal ...
Sep 06, 2012
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A research team led by astronomers at the University of Washington and Harvard University has discovered a bigger version of Earth locked in an orbital tug-of-war with a much larger, Neptune-sized planet as ...
Jun 21, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars ...
Jan 26, 2012
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As the Kepler space telescope continues to search for potentially habitable planets, it also may reveal moons that could host life. Three new simulations will help astronomers identify rocky satellites that ...
Jan 06, 2012
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To understand the weather and climate on Earth as well as on other planets and their moons, scientists need to know the global energy balance, the balance between energy coming in from solar radiation and thermal energy radiated ...
Jan 02, 2012
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Scientists are now starting to identify potential habitable exoplanets after nearly twenty years of the detection of the first planets around other stars. Over 700 exoplanets have been detected and confirmed ...
Dec 05, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The bizarre, hourglass-shaped Kuiper belt object 2001QG298 spins round like a propeller as it orbits the Sun, according to an astronomer from Queens University Belfast. The discovery that ...
Oct 03, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study published on arXiv.org shows that, based on computer simulations, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may not have been the only gas giants in our solar system. According to David ...
Sep 22, 2011
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Astronomers using ESO's world-leading exoplanet hunter HARPS have today announced a rich haul of more than 50 new exoplanets, including 16 super-Earths, one of which orbits at the edge of the habitable zone ...
Sep 12, 2011
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