The fantasy creations of the "Star Wars" universe are strikingly similar to real planets in our own Milky Way galaxy. A super Earth in deep freeze? Think ice-planet "Hoth." And that distant world with double sunsets can't ...
Astronomy
Dec 16, 2015
0
730
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found the clearest indications yet that planets with masses several times that of Jupiter have recently formed in the discs of gas and dust around ...
Astronomy
Dec 16, 2015
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831
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
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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
A new NASA supercomputer simulation of the planet and debris disk around the nearby star Beta Pictoris reveals that the planet's motion drives spiral waves throughout the disk, a phenomenon that causes collisions among the ...
Astronomy
Jun 25, 2015
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87
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
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
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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
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748
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
