Over the last few weeks, astronomers announced not one but two extraordinary discoveries in the ongoing search for planets orbiting stars beyond the sun. The first was a world about the size of Neptune, 5,000 light-years ...
Astronomy
Nov 8, 2012
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(Phys.org)—Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass, according to a study by Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University ...
Astronomy
Nov 1, 2012
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Among the oddities of the outer solar system are the middle-sized moons of Saturn, a half-dozen icy bodies dwarfed by Saturn's massive moon Titan. According to a new model for the origin of the Saturn system, these middle-sized ...
Space Exploration
Oct 17, 2012
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Interviewing a spacecraft isn't something one does every day. It certainly wasn't an option back in the late 1970s, when Voyager 1 and 2 set off on a mission like no other before or since: to visit some of the most mysterious ...
Space Exploration
Oct 17, 2012
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(Phys.org)—A joint effort of citizen scientists and professional astronomers has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting twin suns that in turn is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.
Astronomy
Oct 15, 2012
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(Phys.org)—Pristine material that matches comets in our own Solar System have been found in a dust belt around the young star Beta Pictoris by ESA's Herschel space observatory.
Astronomy
Oct 4, 2012
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(Phys.org)—An international team of astronomers has found evidence that a planet was destroyed by its ageing star. Led by Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the United States, the team showed that the missing ...
Astronomy
Sep 21, 2012
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(Phys.org)—NASA-funded astronomers have, for the first time, spotted planets orbiting sun-like stars in a crowded cluster of stars. The findings offer the best evidence yet planets can sprout up in dense stellar environments. ...
Astronomy
Sep 14, 2012
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News flash: The Milky Way galaxy just got a little weirder. Back in 2011 astronomers were amazed when NASA's Kepler spacecraft discovered a planet orbiting a double star system. Such a world, they realized, would have double ...
Astronomy
Sep 13, 2012
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To build a planet you need lots of rubble and that means lots of heavy elements – stuff more massive than atoms of hydrogen and helium. The elemental composition of the collapsing nebula that gave birth to the Sun and the ...
Astronomy
Aug 31, 2012
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