The third-largest crater on the dwarf planet Ceres was geologically active at least once many millions of years after its formation. In a recent study published today in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from ...
Astronomy
Feb 22, 2022
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376
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 ...
Astronomy
Feb 22, 2022
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321
A ring of planetary debris studded with moon-sized structures has been observed orbiting close to a white dwarf star, hinting at a nearby planet in the "habitable zone" where water and life could exist, according to a new ...
Astronomy
Feb 11, 2022
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1569
We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the Solar System. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental image would probably include a parent star—or more than ...
Astronomy
Jan 14, 2022
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230
Led by the University of Bern, an international research team has discovered a sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star. The discovery was also made thanks to observations performed by the SAINT-EX observatory in Mexico. ...
Astronomy
Jan 7, 2022
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364
As our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, small grains of dust and ice swirled around, left over from the formation of the Sun. Through time, they collided and stuck to each other. As they grew in size, gravity helped ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2021
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28
Ultra-short-period planets are small, compact worlds that whip around their stars at close range, completing an orbit—and a single, scorching year—in less than 24 hours. How these planets came to be in such extreme configurations ...
Astronomy
Dec 2, 2021
3
495
An exhausted star still has some punches to deliver. Astronomers have found that a white dwarf is pummeling a companion object—either a lightweight star or a planet—with incessant blasts of heat and radiation plus a relentless ...
Astronomy
Nov 22, 2021
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76
An astronomer from NSF's NOIRLab has teamed up with a geologist from California State University, Fresno, to make the first estimates of rock types that exist on planets orbiting nearby stars. After studying the chemical ...
Astronomy
Nov 2, 2021
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1633
How will the solar system die? It's a hugely important question that researchers have considered deeply, using our knowledge of physics to create complex theoretical models. We know that the sun will eventually become a "white ...
Astronomy
Oct 14, 2021
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