A crystal ball into our solar system's future
Astronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary system that resembles the expected fate of our solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its life in about five billion years.
Astronomers have discovered the very first confirmed planetary system that resembles the expected fate of our solar system, when the Sun reaches the end of its life in about five billion years.
Astronomy
Oct 13, 2021
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A rogue planet is an interstellar object of planetary mass without a host planetary system. As they freely roam around space, could they be fertile nurseries for life?
Astrobiology
Sep 29, 2021
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Planetary systems take millions of years to form, which introduces quite a challenge for astronomers. How do you identify which stage they are in, or categorize them? The best approach is to look at lots of examples and keep ...
Astronomy
Sep 22, 2021
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Superflares, extreme radiation bursts from stars, have been suspected of causing lasting damage to the atmospheres and thus habitability of exoplanets. A newly published study found evidence that they only pose a limited ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2021
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Four newly discovered planets could help scientists learn more about how the Earth and our solar system developed during their 'teenage' years. The exoplanets reside around 130 light years away and orbit two known stars, ...
Astronomy
Jul 13, 2021
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Between the stars in our Milky Way, vast amounts of tiny dust grains are floating aimlessly around. They form the building blocks of new stars and planets. But we still don't know what elements exactly are available to form ...
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2021
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In 2011, scientists confirmed a suspicion: There was a split in the local cosmos. Samples of the solar wind brought back to Earth by the Genesis mission definitively determined oxygen isotopes in the sun differ from those ...
Astronomy
Jul 5, 2021
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White dwarfs, the glowing cores of dead stars, often host disks of dusty debris. However, these debris disks only appear 10 to 20 millions of years following the star's violent Red Giant phase. A new paper by Planetary Science ...
Astronomy
Jun 3, 2021
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Before planets around other stars were first discovered in the 1990s, these far-flung exotic worlds lived only in the imagination of science fiction writers.
Space Exploration
Apr 22, 2021
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Planetary systems form out of the remnant gas and dust of a primordial star. The material collapses into a protoplanetary disk around the young star, and the clumps that form within the disk eventually become planets, asteroids, ...
Space Exploration
Apr 12, 2021
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