(Phys.org) —Michael Brown, a planetary scientist with California Institute of Technology, has found a medium sized object in the Kuiper belt (dubbed 2002 UX25) that doesn't appear to conform to theories of how such objects ...
Look up into the night sky and count the moons. You can see only one moon, "the" Moon. But does the Earth have any other moons? Around the Solar System, multiple moons are the rule. Jupiter has 67 natural satellites, even ...
Space Exploration
Jul 5, 2013
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(Phys.org) —With data collected from the mighty W. M. Keck Observatory, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) astronomer Mike Brown—known as the Pluto killer for discovering a Kuiper-belt object that led to the ...
Astronomy
Mar 5, 2013
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The hunt for the organic molecules that create proteins and enzymes critical for life here on Earth has largely happened in sophisticated terrestrial laboratories equipped with high-tech gadgetry needed to tease out their ...
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2012
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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is now almost seven years into its 9.5-year journey across the solar system to explore Pluto and its system of moons. Just over two years from now, in January 2015, New Horizons will begin encounter ...
Space Exploration
Oct 16, 2012
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(Phys.org)—Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have uncovered new clues in the ongoing mystery of the Jovian Trojans—asteroids that orbit the sun on the same path as Jupiter. ...
Space Exploration
Oct 15, 2012
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It started with an offhand remark, an unusual characterization for astronomers talking about stars: "They're going off like popcorn."
Astronomy
Sep 11, 2012
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Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal heating. New research ...
Space Exploration
Sep 6, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The formation and development of the solar system, long a topic of study for philosophers and scientists, is today often used as a case study for the formation and development of planetary systems around ...
Astronomy
Mar 14, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The bizarre, hourglass-shaped Kuiper belt object 2001QG298 spins round like a propeller as it orbits the Sun, according to an astronomer from Queens University Belfast. The discovery that the spinning object ...
Astronomy
Oct 3, 2011
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