Exoplanets are exotic worlds orbiting distant stars far beyond our solar system. Ever since the first ones were discovered in the 1990s, astronomers have turned their attention to these distant worlds to understand more about ...
Science fiction suggests that life on other planets, if it exists, is likely far more advanced than life on Earth. A recent study suggests otherwise.
Astrobiology
Sep 22, 2026
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217
The Van Allen radiation belts are huge, doughnut-shaped regions of highly energetic charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetosphere. These charged particles play a major role in space weather, so studying them is important ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 22, 2026
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34
More and more details about 3I/ATLAS are filtering through the scientific process as time goes on. Our third known interstellar visitor attracted the attention of some of the world's most powerful observatories when it was ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 22, 2026
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66
Most kids learn in elementary school that the seasons are caused by Earth rotating on a tilted axis during its yearly orbit around the sun. The substantial tilt, about 23.5 degrees, is thought to be the result of an ancient ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 22, 2026
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24
When NASA's Perseverance rover reached the inner edge of Mars' Jezero Crater in September 2023, mission scientists were surprised by what they found. The geologic area, called the "Margin Unit," stretches along the shoreline ...
Astrobiology
Sep 21, 2026
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98
A University of Iowa-led research team has reported in a new study the most detailed observations to date of the bow shock at Jupiter, our solar system's gas giant. The findings from NASA's Juno mission reveal key differences ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 21, 2026
5
91
A star and its planets form when a cloud of gas and dust collapses in on itself somewhere in space. The cloud then forms a disk around the nascent star, within which the planets will form. This protostar and its disk then ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 21, 2026
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64
Oxidized iron dominates the Martian color palette. The dusty reds, ochers, browns and tans give the planet its nickname: the Red Planet. But new images of Mars' south polar region show something different. Swirls of pink, ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 21, 2026
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51
Where is Earth's center of mass? The answer seems trivially obvious. It's right in the middle of the planet. Ah, but that kind of thinking won't get you a paper in the Geophysical Journal International. It's also not a trivial ...
Planetary Sciences
Sep 21, 2026
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