An enigmatic ring of icy particles circling Saturn, herded into a narrow ribbon by two tiny moons, was probably born of a cosmic collision, according to a study published Monday in Nature Geoscience.
Space Exploration
Aug 17, 2015
0
1195
Among designers of robotic probes to explore the planets, there is certainly no shortage of clever ideas. There are concepts for robots that are propelled by waves in the sea. There are ideas for tumbleweed bots driven by ...
Space Exploration
Jul 23, 2015
2
53
There's something about our solar system that appears to be unusual. For some reason, most of our bigger planets are far away from our host star, while closer in are smaller, rocky worlds, including Earth itself.
Astronomy
Jun 23, 2015
1
515
Scientists at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries (IAC), together with collaborators at the Centre of Astrobiology (CAB) and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), have obtained an image of a giant planet ...
Astronomy
May 13, 2015
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92
Star formation, once thought to consist essentially of just the simple coalescence of material by gravity, actually occurs in a complex series of stages. As the gas and dust in giant molecular clouds come together into stars, ...
Astronomy
May 8, 2015
31
1591
How much atmosphere is too much for life? As scientists discover more super-Earths and mini-Neptunes, the question becomes more relevant.
Astronomy
Apr 2, 2015
0
110
A swarm of tiny probes each with a different sensor could be fired into the clouds of Jupiter and grab data as they fall before burning up in the gas giant planet's atmosphere. The probes would last an estimated 15 minutes ...
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2015
0
748
(Phys.org) —Earth is the only planet in our Solar System to have a single solitary moon. While others, such as Mercury and Venus, have none, the gas giants have accumulated crowds of orbiting bodies—Saturn, for example, ...
Space Exploration
Nov 3, 2014
0
0
With about 4,000 planet candidates from the Kepler Space Telescope data to analyze so far, astronomers are busy trying to figure out questions about habitability. What size planet could host life? How far from its star does ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2014
0
1
When we look at the Solar System, what clues show us how it formed? We can see pieces of its formation in asteroids, comets and other small bodies that cluster on the fringes of our neighborhood (and sometimes, fly closer ...
Astronomy
Sep 8, 2014
42
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