When people think of asteroids, they tend to picture rare, civilization-ending impacts like those depicted in movies such as "Armageddon." In reality, the asteroids most likely to affect modern society are much smaller. While ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 12, 2026
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37
Anyone familiar with the search for alien life will have heard of the "Goldilocks Zone" around a star. This is defined as the orbital band where the temperature is just right for liquid water to pool on a rocky planet's surface—a ...
Astrobiology
Mar 5, 2026
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143
Asteroid mining companies are finally getting off the ground, and that is raising some concerns about the impact those activities will have on the space environment. A new paper published in Acta Astronautica by Anna Marie ...
Space Exploration
Feb 24, 2026
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40
Astronomers have long debated why so many icy objects in the outer solar system look like snowmen. Michigan State University researchers now have evidence of the surprisingly simple process that could be responsible for their ...
Astronomy
Feb 19, 2026
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91
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state's space ambitions.
Space Exploration
Feb 17, 2026
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31
New research from Rice University suggests that the giant planet Jupiter reshaped the early solar system in dramatic ways, carving out rings and gaps that ultimately explain one of the longest-standing puzzles in planetary ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 22, 2025
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139
In the distant past, the solar system was rife with impacts and collisions. Millions of rocky objects zoomed chaotically through the system, smashing into each other in collisional cascades. Over time, many of them eventually ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2025
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98
The asteroid belt is found orbiting between Mars and Jupiter and is a vast collection of rocks that is thought to be a planet that never formed. When our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, the material in this region ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 29, 2025
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56
When considering the unnamed major features of all the moons, asteroids, and comets in our solar system, there are still a lot of places out there that need proper names. That means the International Astronomical Union (IAU), ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 17, 2025
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44
New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some microbial metabolisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed ...
Astrobiology
Aug 20, 2025
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