https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Laser sail propulsion is an idea that won't go away. By aiming powerful Earth-based lasers at tiny spacecraft with light sails, tiny spacecraft can be accelerated to near-relativistic speeds without carrying fuel or an energy source, and without carrying any kind of propulsion system at all. There are clear advantages to this idea, if it can be implemented. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-relativistic-swarm-image-proxima-meter.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:20:08 EDT news696769921 The moon has played a huge role in the development of Earth. It stabilizes the planet, tempers dramatic climate swings, and possibly even provides the tidal heating that might have led to the first life forms. So it's natural we would want to find a similar Earth/Luna system somewhere else in the cosmos. But astronomers have been searching for one for years at this point to no avail. And a new paper, available on the arXiv preprint server, from Emily Pass and her colleagues at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Chicago describes using the James Webb Space Telescope to track some of the most promising exomoon candidates—only to be foiled by the star they were orbiting. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-jwst-earth-moon-twin-habitable.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:20:08 EDT news696505768 The two largest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, also have the largest satellite systems, or the most moons. At present, Jupiter's reported moon count stands at more than 100 moons, and along with its many rings, Saturn has more than 280 reported moons. Not all these moons are equal, however. Jupiter's moon family has four large members, including the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede, while Saturn's family is dominated by one large moon, Titan, the solar system's second largest. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-jupiter-cultivated-large-moons-saturn.html Astronomy Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:20:04 EDT news694772744 Provided they host thick, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, moons orbiting free-floating exoplanets could retain much of the heat generated deep within their interiors by tidal forces. Led by David Dahlbüdding at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and Giulia Roccetti at the European Space Agency, a new study predicts that hydrogen could act as a potent greenhouse gas—potentially providing habitable conditions for billions of years after their host planets are first ejected from their stellar systems. The work has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-moons-orbiting-exoplanets-habitable.html Astrobiology Sat, 21 Mar 2026 09:50:01 EDT news692440075 Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has shown that moons around free-floating planets can keep their water oceans liquid for up to 4.3 billion years by virtue of dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating—that is to say, for almost as long as Earth has existed and sufficient time for complex life to develop. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hydrogen-atmosphere-exomoons-habitable-billions.html Astrobiology Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:00:07 EDT news692437555 Our solar system hosts almost 900 known moons; more than 400 orbit the eight planets while the remaining orbit dwarf planets, asteroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Of these, only a handful are targets for astrobiology and could potentially support life as we know it, including Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede, and Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus. While these moons orbit two of the largest planets in our solar system, what about moons orbiting giant exoplanets, also called exomoons? But, to find life on exomoons, scientists need to find exomoons to begin with. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-exomoons-reveal-lunar-eclipses.html Astrobiology Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:22:55 EST news691071680 Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new exoplanet orbiting a distant star known as TIC-65910228. The newfound alien world is slightly larger and nearly five times more massive than Jupiter. The discovery was reported in a paper published Feb. 13 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-astronomers-rare-super-jupiter-orbiting.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:40:01 EST news691060585 Free-floating planets, or as they are more commonly known, rogue planets, wander interstellar space completely alone. Saying there might be a lot of them is a bit of an understatement. Recent estimates put the number of rogue planets at something equivalent to the number of stars in our galaxy. Some of them, undoubtedly, are accompanied by moons—and some of those might even be the size of Earth. A new paper, accepted for publication into the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and also available in pre-print on arXiv, by David Dahlbüdding of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and his co-authors, describes how some of those rogue exo-moons might even have liquid water on their surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-life-moon-sun.html Astrobiology Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:57:41 EST news690029822 So far, humanity has yet to find its first "exomoon"—a moon orbiting a planet outside of the solar system. But that hasn't been for lack of trying. According to a new paper by Thomas Winterhalder of the European Southern Observatory and his co-authors, which is available on the arXiv preprint server, the reason isn't because those moons don't exist, but simply because we lack the technology to detect them. They propose a new "kilometric baseline interferometer" that can detect moons as small as Earth up to 200 parsecs (652 light years) away. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ambitious-habitable-moons-giant-planets.html Astronomy Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:36:34 EST news686838961 Searching for exomoons—moons that orbit around another planet—was one of the most exciting capabilities expected of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) when it launched in late 2021. So, after four years of operation, why hasn't it found one yet? Turns out it's really, really hard to find a moon around a planet light-years away. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-jwst-exomoon-starspot.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:30:27 EST news683818202 Have scientists finally confirmed the existence of the first exomoon? This is what a study released on the preprint server arXiv, and accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, hopes to address. A large international team of researchers investigated new methods for identifying an exomoon orbiting a gas giant exoplanet. The study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for finding exomoons, the latter of which has yet to be confirmed. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-astrometry-exomoon-orbiting-gas-giant.html Astronomy Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:50:03 EST news683797655 At a young age, we're told how the sun warms Earth and makes life possible. That idea sticks with most of us for life. But when we want to understand things more thoroughly and we dig more deeply, we learn that Earth has its own heat sources that help it maintain habitability: remnant heat and radioactive decay. Other rocky worlds can have these sources, too. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-mind-rogue-planets-moons-life.html Astrobiology Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:47:04 EST news682094821 There are no confirmed exomoons, moons orbiting distant exoplanets in other solar systems. There are a few candidates, but none have passed the threshold and been accepted as confirmed. But they must exist. Moons are common in our solar system, so it would be extremely weird if they didn't exist elsewhere. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-habitable-zone-planets-red-dwarfs.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 10 Nov 2025 15:54:04 EST news682012441 Exoplanets aren't the only objects floating around other stars—they likely have comets and asteroids as well. Even some of the exoplanets themselves will have "exomoons," at least according to our current understanding of the physics of planetary formation. However, we have yet to find any of these other objects conclusively, though there has been some hint at the presence of exomoons in the last ten years. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-exomoons-host-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:28:03 EDT news677935681 We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we're not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can't explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter, also released as a preprint paper on arXiv, by Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern, discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-jupiter-galilean-moons-scientists-explore.html Astrobiology Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:47:16 EDT news674732835 People always want to know what will happen to Earth when the sun eventually swells up as a red giant. For one thing, the expanding sun will turn the inner planets into cinders. It will almost certainly spell the end of life on our planet. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-europa-habitable-world-sun-red.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 28 May 2025 09:20:05 EDT news667642802 How would detecting methane help astronomers identify if exoplanets, or even exomoons, have life as we know it, or even as we don't know it? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers led by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center investigated how a method called BARBIE (Bayesian Analysis for Remote Biosignature Identification on exoEarths) could be used on a future space mission to detect methane (CH4) on Earth-like exoplanets in optical (visible) and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-methane-key-life-worlds.html Astrobiology Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:30:07 EST news658409401 Astronomers may have discovered a scrawny star bolting through the middle of our galaxy with a planet in tow. If confirmed, the pair sets a new record for the fastest-moving exoplanet system, nearly double our solar system's speed through the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-scientists-candidate-speediest-exoplanet.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:19:07 EST news658408741 Exomoons are a hot topic in the science community, as none have been confirmed with astronomers finding new and creative ways to identify them. But while astronomers have searched for exomoons orbiting exoplanets around single stars like our sun, could exomoons exist around exoplanets orbiting binary stars? https://phys.org/news/2024-12-planets-orbiting-stars-moons.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 16 Dec 2024 12:46:23 EST news653575573 When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we home in on the habitable zone. A habitable zone is a region around a star where planets receive enough stellar energy to have liquid surface water. It's a somewhat crude but helpful first step when examining thousands of exoplanets. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-stellar-threats-impact-habitable-zone.html Astrobiology Wed, 06 Nov 2024 15:56:04 EST news650130961 Moons are the norm in our solar system. The International Astronomical Union recognizes 288 planetary moons, and more are being discovered. Saturn has a whopping 146 moons. Every planet except Mercury and Venus has moons, and their lack of moons is attributed to their small size and proximity to the sun. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-exomoons.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 28 Oct 2024 11:33:11 EDT news649333982 New research done at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reveals potential signs of a rocky, volcanic moon orbiting an exoplanet 635 light-years from Earth. The biggest clue is a sodium cloud that the findings suggest is close to but slightly out of sync with the exoplanet, a Saturn-size gas giant named WASP-49 b, although additional research is needed to confirm the cloud's behavior. Within our solar system, gas emissions from Jupiter's volcanic moon Io create a similar phenomenon. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-distant-planet-host-volcanic-moon.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:56:04 EDT news647787361 Can a kilometer-scale telescope help conduct more efficient science, and specifically for the field of optical interferometry? This is what a study recently posted to the preprint server arXiv hopes to address. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-inexpensive-kilometer-telescope-exoplanet-movies.html Astronomy Mon, 26 Aug 2024 13:13:06 EDT news643896782 Scientists around the world are constantly on the hunt for planets outside our solar system that could potentially provide a habitable environment for life. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-earth-small-planets.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:17:05 EDT news637931822 A future space observatory could use exo-eclipses to tease out exomoon populations. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-habitable-worlds-observatory-lunar-solar.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 21 May 2024 15:40:01 EDT news635524293 A team of astronomers and citizen scientists has discovered a planet in the habitable zone of an unusual star system, including two stars and potentially another exoplanet. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-citizen-scientists-exoplanet-binary-star.html Astronomy Tue, 30 Apr 2024 12:15:38 EDT news633698133 Do exoplanets have exomoons? It would be extraordinary if they didn't, but as with all things, we don't know until we know. Astronomers thought they may have found exomoons several years ago around two exoplanets: Kepler-1625b and Kepler-1708b. Did they? https://phys.org/news/2024-01-exomoons.html Astronomy Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:19:04 EST news625846741 Does the size of an exomoon help determine if life could form on an exoplanet it's orbiting? This is something a February 2022 study published in Nature Communications hoped to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential for large exomoons to form around large exoplanets (Earth-sized and larger) like how our moon was formed around the Earth. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-big-planets-dont-necessarily-moons.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 15 Jan 2024 13:37:26 EST news624548243 Only two of the more than 5,300 known exoplanets have so far provided evidence of moons in orbit around them. In observations of the planets Kepler-1625b and Kepler-1708b from the Kepler and Hubble space telescopes, researchers discovered traces of such moons for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-large-exomoons-kepler-astronomers.html Astronomy Thu, 07 Dec 2023 11:17:04 EST news621170221 A recent study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society examines formation mechanisms for how binary planets—two large planetary bodies orbiting each other—can be produced from a type of tidal heating known as tidal dissipation, or the energy that is shared between two planetary bodies as the orbit close to each other, which the Earth and our moon experiences. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-planets.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:29:04 EST news620310542