News tagged with planet formation

Related topics: earth , stars , planets , solar system

Baby galaxies grew up quickly

Baby galaxies from the young Universe more than 12 billion years ago evolved faster than previously thought, shows new research from the Niels Bohr Institute. This means that already in the early history of ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 67 | with audio podcast

Astronomers discover a rare stellar disk of quartz dust

A research team of Japanese astronomers led by Dr. Hideaki Fujiwara (Subaru Telescope) has discovered a main-sequence star that is surrounded by a rare disk of quartz dust. Collisions of planetesimals, building ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 05, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (12) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Some stars capture rogue planets

(Phys.org) -- New research suggests that billions of stars in our galaxy have captured rogue planets that once roamed interstellar space. The nomad worlds, which were kicked out of the star systems in which ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

When stellar metallicity sparks planet formation

New research predicts the criteria needed for Earth-like planets to form around a star that have one-tenth the metallicity of our Sun. If researchers find small, rocky planets orbiting stars with lower metallicity, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

A planetary system from the early Universe

A group of European astronomers has discovered an ancient planetary system that is likely to be a survivor from one of the earliest cosmic eras, 13 billion years ago. The system consists of the star HIP 11952 ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 27, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (13) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Researchers say galaxy may swarm with 'nomad planets'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (23) | comments 31 | with audio podcast

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Subaru's sharp eye confirms signs of unseen planets in the dust ring of HR 4796 A

(PhysOrg.com) -- The SEEDS (Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru Telescope/HiCIAO) project, a five-year international collaboration launched in 2009 and led by Motohide Tamura of NAOJ ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

The water reservoir in a young planetary system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers once thought that the process of star formation was more-or-less controlled by the simple coalescence of material by gravity, leading eventually to a new star. But they have come ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 15, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Cosmic voyager has a layover in St. Louis

Last January two amateur meteorite hunters dropped by Randy Korotev's office at Washington University in St. Louis to show him their latest purchase, a 17-kilogram pallasite meteorite found in 2006 near Conception ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Spiral arms hint at the presence of planets

A new image of the disk of gas and dust around a sun-like star has spiral-arm-like structures. These features may provide clues to the presence of embedded but as-yet-unseen planets.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2

Stardust discovered in far-off planetary systems

Searching for extra-solar planets -- which are planets outside of our solar system -- is very popular these days. About 700 planets are known at the moment, a number that is continuously rising due to refined ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

Rocky planets could have been born as gas giants

When NASA announced the discovery of over 1,200 new potential planets spotted by the Kepler Space Telescope, almost a quarter of them were thought to be Super-Earths. Now, new research suggests that these ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 16, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 38

Want to make planets? Better hurry

Currently, astronomers have two competing models for planetary formation. In one, the planets form in a single, monolithic collapse. In the second, the core forms first and then slowly accretes gas and dust. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 24, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 18

Flipping hot Jupiters: Why some planets orbit the wrong way

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the last few years astronomers have observed that in some extrasolar systems the star is spinning one way and the planet, a "hot Jupiter," is orbiting the star in the opposite direction. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 11, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 23 | with audio podcast