A ring of planetary debris studded with moon-sized structures has been observed orbiting close to a white dwarf star, hinting at a nearby planet in the "habitable zone" where water and life could exist, according to a new ...
Astronomy
Feb 11, 2022
0
1569
Signs of a planet transiting a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy may have been detected for the first time. This intriguing result, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, opens up a new window to search for exoplanets ...
Astronomy
Oct 25, 2021
2
42457
The collective activity of life—all of the microbes, plants, and animals—have changed planet Earth.
Astrobiology
Feb 16, 2022
10
2195
We have a pretty good idea of what lurks within our solar system. We know there isn't a Mars-sized planet orbiting between Jupiter and Saturn, nor a brown dwarf nemesis heading our way. Anything large and fairly close to ...
Astronomy
Aug 1, 2022
9
129
In a new study, published in the journal Nature, the researchers show that the planet, which is 31 light years from Earth, is one of the lightest among the nearly 5,000 exoplanets (planets outside our own solar system) that ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2021
0
2425
With its mirror segments beautifully aligned and its scientific instruments undergoing calibration, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is just weeks away from full operation. Soon after the first observations are revealed ...
Astronomy
May 27, 2022
4
263
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has directly photographed evidence of a Jupiter-like protoplanet forming through what researchers describe as an "intense and violent process." This discovery supports a long-debated theory for ...
Astronomy
Apr 4, 2022
4
904
Seven Earth-sized planets orbit the star TRAPPIST-1 in near-perfect harmony, and U.S. and European researchers have used that harmony to determine how much physical abuse the planets could have withstood in their infancy.
Astronomy
Nov 25, 2021
3
471
A University of California Riverside (UCR) astronomer and a group of eagle-eyed citizen scientists have discovered a giant gas planet hidden from view by typical stargazing tools.
Astronomy
Jan 13, 2022
1
1054
A new study disputes the prevailing hypothesis on why Mercury has a big core relative to its mantle (the layer between a planet's core and crust). For decades, scientists argued that hit-and-run collisions with other bodies ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 2, 2021
74
1329
