Planets orbit their parent stars while separated by enormous distances—in our solar system, planets are like grains of sand in a region the size of a football field. The time that planets take to orbit their suns have no ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 3, 2024
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89
The study of "exoplanets," the sci-fi-sounding name for all planets in the cosmos beyond our own solar system, is a fairly new field. Mainly, exoplanet researchers like those in the ExoLab at the University of Kansas use ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 2, 2024
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41
In several billion years, our sun will become a white dwarf. What will happen to Jupiter and Saturn when the sun transitions to become a stellar remnant? Life could go on, though the giant planets will likely drift further ...
Planetary Sciences
Jan 31, 2024
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81
The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research suggests.
Astrobiology
Jan 29, 2024
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343
A recently discovered solar system with six confirmed exoplanets and a possible seventh is boosting astronomers' knowledge of planet formation and evolution. Relying on a globe-spanning arsenal of observatories and instruments, ...
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2024
3
161
All modern life shares a robust, hardy, efficient system of intertwined chemicals that propagate themselves. This system must have emerged from a simpler, less efficient, more delicate one. But what was that system, and why ...
Astrobiology
Jan 26, 2024
3
152
The European Space Agency gave the green light to two missions on Thursday, one to detect ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves and another to probe the secrets of Earth's closest neighboring planet Venus.
Space Exploration
Jan 25, 2024
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2590
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observed the smallest exoplanet where water vapor has been detected in its atmosphere. At only approximately twice Earth's diameter, the planet GJ 9827d could be an example ...
Astronomy
Jan 25, 2024
0
177
We know of Mars as the red planet, for its surface and atmosphere is caked in endless swirling dust of rusted iron, the rusting action provided by the always-eager oxygen. But this was not always so.
Astrobiology
Jan 24, 2024
0
36
In the coming years, NASA plans to send several astrobiology missions to Venus and Mars to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. These will occur alongside crewed missions to the moon (for the first time since the ...
Space Exploration
Jan 24, 2024
2
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