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Planetary Sciences Feb 6, 2024

Lunar sample returned by China's 2020 lunar mission contains minerals that provide clues to the moon's history

Earth's moon achieved its Swiss cheese appearance from celestial objects crashing into its surface, forming impact craters. But craters weren't all that was left behind; the intense pressure and temperature of such a collision ...

Astronomy Feb 5, 2024

How dangerous are kilonovae?

When we look up at the sky on a particularly dark night, there is a sense of timelessness. We might see the flash of a meteor, and occasionally a comet is visible to the naked eye, but the cold and distant stars are unchanging. ...

Planetary Sciences Jan 31, 2024

Webb directly images two planets orbiting white dwarfs

In several billion years, our sun will become a white dwarf. What will happen to Jupiter and Saturn when the sun transitions to become a stellar remnant? Life could go on, though the giant planets will likely drift further ...

Planetary Sciences Jan 26, 2024

Why Venus died

Venus is only slightly smaller than the Earth, and so has enjoyed billions of years of a warm heart. But for this planet, sometimes called Earth's sister, that heat has betrayed it. That planet is now wrapped in suffocating ...

Planetary Sciences Jan 25, 2024

Scientists discover the moon is shrinking, causing landslides and instability in lunar south pole

Earth's moon shrank more than 150 feet in circumference as its core gradually cooled over the last few hundred million years. In much the same way a grape wrinkles when it shrinks down to a raisin, the moon also develops ...

General Physics Jan 23, 2024

Gravity helps show strong force strength in the proton

The power of gravity is writ large across our visible universe. It can be seen in the lock step of moons as they circle planets; in wandering comets pulled off-course by massive stars; and in the swirl of gigantic galaxies. ...

Space Exploration Jan 19, 2024

Q&A: Small solar sails could be the next 'giant leap' for interplanetary space exploration

Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to build a fleet of low-cost, ...

Planetary Sciences Jan 16, 2024

Samples from Wild 2 comet reveal a surprising past

Eighteen years after NASA's Stardust mission returned to Earth with the first samples from a known comet, the true nature of that icy object is coming into focus.

Astronomy Jan 15, 2024

The implications of 'Oumuamua on the panspermia theory

On October 19, 2017, astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey detected an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our solar system for the first time. The object, known as 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua, stimulated significant scientific ...

Planetary Sciences Jan 12, 2024

Planetesimals are buffeted by wind in their nebula, throwing debris into space: Study

Before planets form around a young star, the protosolar disk is populated with innumerable planetesimals. Over time, these planetesimals combine to form planets, and the core accretion theory explains how that happens. But ...

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