Mars has received considerable attention in the past few decades, thanks to the many robotic missions exploring it to learn more about its past. NASA and China plan to send astronauts/taikonauts there in the coming decades, ...
Space Exploration
Jun 3, 2025
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321
For centuries, astronomers have sought to understand the formation and evolution of the solar system and the dynamics that govern it. In particular, there is the long-standing question of whether or not the planets' orbits ...
Astronomy
Jun 2, 2025
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65
In the vast expanse of space, an estimated 1 million near-Earth objects (NEOs), also known as near-Earth asteroids, are constantly orbiting close to our planet. Every night, astronomers track NEOs and discover new ones, noting ...
Astrobiology
May 28, 2025
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76
In the cold, dark outskirts of planetary systems far beyond the reach of the known planets, mysterious gas giants and planetary masses silently orbit their stars—sometimes thousands of astronomical units (AU) away. For years, ...
Astronomy
May 27, 2025
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140
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Congress instructed NASA to find 90% of near-Earth asteroids threatening Earth. They've made progress finding these asteroids that orbit the sun and come to within 1.3 astronomical units of Earth. ...
Planetary Sciences
May 26, 2025
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80
Tracking exoplanets via orbital mechanics isn't easy. Plenty of variables could affect how a planet moves around its star, and determining which ones affect any given exoplanet requires a lot of data and a lot of modeling.
Astronomy
May 20, 2025
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46
On March 15 at 8:15 p.m. Beijing time (March 14 at 8:42 p.m. EDT; 5:42 p.m. PDT), China launched two satellites atop a Yuanzheng-1S mounted on a Long March-2C rocket. While the first and second stages were successful, a technical ...
Space Exploration
Apr 23, 2025
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59
Why do comets and their meteoroid streams weave in and out of Earth's orbit and their orbits disperse over time? In a paper published in the journal Icarus, two SETI Institute researchers show that this is not due to the ...
Astronomy
Apr 16, 2025
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87
A combination of cosmic processes shapes the formation of one of the most common types of planets outside of our solar system, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The research team used data from NASA's ...
Astronomy
Mar 17, 2025
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28
Last year, astronomers detected the near-earth asteroid (NEA) 2024 YR4, which orbits the sun every four years and periodically crosses Earth's orbit. The nature of its orbit makes it a potentially hazardous object (PHO), ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 11, 2025
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