In studying a unique class of ultra-hot exoplanets, NASA Hubble Space Telescope astronomers may be in the mood for dancing to the Calypso party song "Hot, Hot, Hot." That's because these bloated Jupiter-sized worlds are so ...
Virginia Tech researchers, in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, have discovered that key parts of the global carbon cycle used to track movement of carbon dioxide in the environment are not correct, ...
Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape. New research is examining the radiation and winds emanating from black hole activity and shows how they may exert effects on nearby planets.
We're still in the early days of searching for life elsewhere. The Perseverance rover is on its way to a paleo-delta on Mars to look for fossilized signs of ancient bacterial life. SETI's been watching the sky with radio ...
The field of extrasolar planet studies is undergoing a seismic shift. To date, 4,940 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,711 planetary systems, with another 8,709 candidates awaiting confirmation. With so many planets available ...
Major smashups between rocky bodies shaped our solar system. Observations of a similar crash give clues about how frequent these events are around other stars.
As human-caused greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise beyond limits for what our species has experienced, researchers are looking to a mystery in the past to answer questions about what may lay ahead.
We do not yet know whether the sun-like stars closest to us, the α Centauri A/B binary, harbor an Earth-like planet. However, thanks to new modeling work, we now have a good sense of what such a planet, should it exist, would ...
Astronomers discovered the first exoplanets in 1992. They found a pair of them orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 about 2,300 light-years from the Sun. Two years later they discovered the third planet in the system.
Newspapers around the world printed the discovery on their front pages: Astronomers had found that a red dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1 was home to a close-knit family of seven Earth-size planets. NASA announced the system ...
