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
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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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87
Astronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary system that resembles the expected fate of our solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its life in about five billion years.
Astronomy
Oct 13, 2021
2
10852
An international team of astronomers led by scientists from Leiden University has for the first time characterized a dust disk surrounding a young super-Jupiter, which is either a giant planet or brown dwarf. They used so-called ...
Astronomy
Oct 13, 2021
0
38
A team of space scientists has published a paper in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics suggesting that there may be an Earth- or Mars-sized planet orbiting beyond Neptune. They further suggest that simulations of ...
When the world's most powerful telescope launches into space this year, scientists will learn whether Earth-sized planets in our 'solar neighborhood' have a key prerequisite for life—an atmosphere.
Astronomy
Sep 29, 2021
1
198
Brown dwarfs are astronomical objects with masses between those of planets and stars. The question of where exactly the limits of their mass lie remains a matter of debate, especially since their constitution is very similar ...
Astronomy
Aug 27, 2021
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