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
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Scientists have used the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio-telescope system and NASA's Cassini spacecraft to measure the position of Saturn and its family of moons to within about a mile—at ...
Space Exploration
Jan 8, 2015
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(Phys.org) —For their latest discovery, Yale astronomers and the Planet Hunter program have found a low-mass, low-density planet with a punctuality problem.
Astronomy
Oct 30, 2014
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The protoplanet Vesta has been witness to an eventful past: images taken by the framing camera onboard NASA's space probe Dawn show two enormous craters in the southern hemisphere. The images were obtained during Dawn's year-long ...
Space Exploration
Jan 3, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered vast comet belts surrounding two nearby planetary systems known to host only Earth-to-Neptune-mass worlds. The comet reservoirs could have delivered ...
Astronomy
Nov 27, 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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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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NASA's Kepler mission has found the first multi-planet solar system orbiting a binary star, characterized in large part by University of Texas at Austin astronomers using two telescopes at the university's McDonald Observatory ...
Astronomy
Aug 28, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- The first evidence of a planet's destruction by its aging star has been discovered by an international team of astronomers. The evidence indicates that the missing planet was devoured as the star began expanding ...
Astronomy
Aug 20, 2012
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(Phys.org) -- This artist's conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star near our own, called Eta Corvi. Evidence for this barrage comes from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, whose infrared detectors picked up indications ...
Space Exploration
Jul 24, 2012
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