Cooking up alien atmospheres on Earth

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are cooking up an alien atmosphere right here on Earth. In a new study, JPL scientists used a high-temperature "oven" to heat a mixture of hydrogen ...

Juice's odyssey of exploration: Jupiter's icy moons

A grand odyssey of exploration is about to begin. Humankind's next bold mission to the outer solar system, ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is poised to explore giant planet Jupiter and its largest moons. These intriguing ...

NASA spacecraft to enter asteroid's orbit today

Today, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin a prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta, making the mission the first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.

Hot new planet could be in habitable zone -- barely

Astronomers believe they have found a second planet outside our solar system that seems to be in the right zone for life, just barely. But it would feel like a steam bath - hot, sticky and beyond uncomfortable.

Stellar winds may electrify exoplanets

(Phys.org) —The strangest class of exoplanets found to date might be even stranger than astronomers have thought. A new model suggests that they are partially heated by electric currents linked to their host stars. Florida ...

Jupiter, solar system's 'big bully,' takes a punch

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have been turning the world's most powerful telescopes toward Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, ever since Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley discovered a new dark marking ...

Planet-Hunting Method Succeeds at Last

(PhysOrg.com) -- A long-proposed tool for hunting planets has netted its first catch -- a Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars known.

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