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
(Phys.org)—A new model developed by a team of researchers with member affiliations in Argentina, France and Mexico, depicts a possible scenario to explain why gas giants do not migrate into the star they are orbiting during ...
Luke Skywalker's home in "Star Wars" is the desert planet Tatooine, with twin sunsets because it orbits two stars. So far, only uninhabitable gas-giant planets have been identified circling such binary stars, and many researchers ...
Astronomy
Mar 30, 2015
0
103
In an experiment at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, scientists precisely measured the temperature and structure of aluminum as it transitions into a superhot, highly compressed concoction ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 23, 2015
1
1079
Long before Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed, it seems that the inner solar system may have harbored a number of super-Earths—planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. If so, those planets are long gone—broken ...
Astronomy
Mar 23, 2015
19
2132
Two research groups of Heidelberg astronomers have independently of each other discovered a rare planet. The celestial body, called Kepler-432b, is one of the most dense and massive planets known so far. The teams, one led ...
Astronomy
Feb 13, 2015
4
64
Like many a scientist before me, I have spent this week trying to grow a crystal. I wasn't fussy, it didn't have to be a single crystal – a smush of something would have done – just as long as it had a bit of long-range ...
Space Exploration
Jan 30, 2015
0
17
How did the Solar System's planets come to be? The leading theory is something known as the "protoplanet hypothesis", which essentially says that very small objects stuck to each other and grew bigger and bigger—big enough ...
Space Exploration
Jan 30, 2015
7
48
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
Astronomers from MAD at Universidad de Chile present a viable scenario for the three dimensional geometry of a planet forming system. The finding is based on the discovery of shadows cast by a warped inner disk which bears ...
Astronomy
Jan 8, 2015
0
71
