NASA completes study of future 'ice giant' mission concepts

A NASA-led and NASA-sponsored study of potential future missions to the mysterious "ice giant" planets Uranus and Neptune has been released—the first in a series of mission studies NASA will conduct in support of the next ...

Researchers propose new type of planetary object

Scientists suggest in a new study the existence of a planetary object called a "synestia," a huge, spinning, donut-shaped mass of hot, vaporized rock, formed as planet-sized objects smash into each other.

Hubble takes close-up portrait of Jupiter

During April 2017 Jupiter is in opposition: it is at its closest to Earth and the hemisphere facing Earth is fully illuminated by the Sun. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope used this special configuration to capture an ...

Scientists estimate solar nebula's lifetime

About 4.6 billion years ago, an enormous cloud of hydrogen gas and dust collapsed under its own weight, eventually flattening into a disk called the solar nebula. Most of this interstellar material contracted at the disk's ...

Up, up and away: Chemists say 'yes,' helium can form compounds

Can helium bond with other elements to form a stable compound? Students attentive to Utah State University professor Alex Boldyrev's introductory chemistry lectures would immediately respond "no." And they'd be correct – ...

Winds of rubies and sapphires strike the sky of giant planet

Signs of powerful changing winds have been detected on a planet 16 times larger than Earth, over 1000 light years away - the first time ever that weather systems have been found on a gas giant outside our solar system - according ...

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