After examining a dozen types of suns and a roster of planet surfaces, Cornell University astronomers have developed a practical model—an environmental color "decoder"—to tease out climate clues for potentially habitable ...
Astronomy
May 18, 2020
1
206
The Moon has long been viewed as a crucial component in creating an environment suitable for the evolution of complex life on Earth, but a number of scientific results in recent years have shown that perhaps our planet doesn't ...
Space Exploration
Jan 27, 2015
4
137
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water ...
Astronomy
Jan 7, 2020
7
2309
Two phenomena known to inhibit the potential habitability of planets—tidal forces and vigorous stellar activity—might instead help chances for life on certain planets orbiting low-mass stars, University of Washington ...
Astronomy
Jan 28, 2015
1
2110
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.
Astronomy
Jul 12, 2022
0
3275
As telescopes become more advanced, we’ll be able to see more details about planets orbiting other stars - including indications that those planets have life. However, it would probably take many centuries before we could ...
Space Exploration
Apr 29, 2010
30
0
For decades, science fiction authors have imagined scenarios in which life thrives on the harsh surfaces of Mars or our moon, or in the oceans below the icy surfaces of Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa. But ...
Astronomy
Dec 29, 2023
0
150
Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Earth (only 4.28 light-years away) is getting a lot of attention these days. It hosts a planet, Proxima Cen b, whose mass is about 1.3 Earth-mass (though it could be larger, depending ...
Astronomy
Apr 3, 2017
4
389
Why are we now? We know that the universe is roughly 14 billion years old, and that someday it is likely to end—perhaps because of a Big Freeze, Big Rip or Big Crunch.
Astronomy
Aug 23, 2016
33
180
ANU scientists have found that Earth is made of the same elements as the Sun but has less of the volatile elements such as hydrogen, helium, oxygen and nitrogen.
Astronomy
Mar 18, 2019
31
1008
