The ESA launched Gaia in 2013 with one overarching goal: to map more than one billion stars in the Milky Way. Its vast collection of data is frequently used in published research. Gaia is an ambitious mission, though it seldom ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 26, 2023
0
24
In 2026, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch its next-generation exoplanet-hunting mission, the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO).
Planetary Sciences
Jul 31, 2023
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13
Life around an ill-tempered red dwarf star is no fun for accompanying newborn planets. Call it a baptism of fire. Entangled magnetic fields cause a red dwarf to spit out "super-flares" that are 100 to 1,000 times more powerful ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2023
0
165
The best hope for finding life on another world isn't listening for coded messages or traveling to distant stars, it's detecting the chemical signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres. This long hoped-for achievement is often ...
Astrobiology
Jun 19, 2023
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1069
An international team of astronomers has announced the second-ever discovery of a multiplanetary circumbinary system.
Planetary Sciences
Jun 12, 2023
2
235
A study led by researchers of the University of Liège and the CSIC—using observations from NASA's TESS telescope—presents the detection of a system of two planets slightly larger than Earth orbiting a cold star in a ...
Astronomy
May 25, 2023
0
54
In our solar system, the planetary orbits all have a similar orientation. Their orbital planes vary by a few degrees, but roughly the planets all orbit in the same direction. This invariable plane as it's known also has an ...
Planetary Sciences
May 8, 2023
1
14
If we ever find life on other worlds, it is unlikely to be a powerful message from space. It's certainly possible that an alien civilization specifically sends us a radio message like a scene out of Contact, but the more ...
Astrobiology
May 4, 2023
0
69
Alpha Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system located just 4.376 light-years away. Despite its proximity, repeated astronomical surveys have failed to find hard evidence of extrasolar planets in this ...
Space Exploration
Mar 22, 2023
0
78
This year started with a nice imaging opportunity for Solar Orbiter, and a chance to further improve the quality of its data. On January 3, 2023, inner planet Mercury crossed the spacecraft's field of view, resulting in a ...
Astronomy
Feb 21, 2023
0
18
