New images obtained on May 16, 2016, by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope confirm the presence of a dark vortex in the atmosphere of Neptune. This full visible-light image shows that the dark feature resides near and below a ...
Astronomy
Jun 24, 2016
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510
A team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of a young planet, only 11 million years old, that orbits very close to its star (at 0.05 AU), with an orbital period of 5.4 days. Approximately 5 times the size of the Earth, ...
Astronomy
Jun 21, 2016
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56
In the three-way horse race to prove that biology is not just a terrestrial aberration, there's one steed that many people ignore: sampling the air of distant planets to see if they contain the exhaust gases of life, or in ...
Astronomy
Jun 6, 2016
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What would it take to hide an entire planet? It sounds more like a question posed in an episode of "Star Trek" than in academic discourse, but sometimes the bleeding edge of science blurs with themes found in science fiction.
Astronomy
Apr 14, 2016
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28
Researchers have found a new way to measure the pull of gravity at the surface of a star. For distant stars with planets orbiting them, this information is key in determining whether any of those planets can harbour life.
Astronomy
Jan 1, 2016
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Astronomers have discovered a mysterious dwarf planet that is three times farther away than Pluto and believed to be the most distant object in our solar system.
Astronomy
Nov 11, 2015
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We only have one example of a planet with life: Earth. But within the next generation, it should become possible to detect signs of life on planets orbiting distant stars. If we find alien life, new questions will arise. ...
Astronomy
Aug 27, 2015
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165
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has teamed up with a telescope on the ground to find a remote gas planet about 13,000 light-years away, making it one of the most distant planets known.
Astronomy
Apr 14, 2015
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74
A report published in Science has dismissed claims made last year that the first super-Earth planet discovered in the habitable zone of a distant star was 'stellar activity masquerading as planets.' The researchers are confident ...
Astronomy
Mar 6, 2015
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329
Exciting new research by astronomers at The Open University (OU) and the Universities of Warwick and Sheffield has opened up the chance to find out what distant planets are made of. The team of astronomers have made observations ...
Astronomy
Feb 19, 2015
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150
