For more than three billion years now, Earth's ability to support life has been a delicate balancing act. Climatic periods of severe cold or hot have brought life to its knees. Glaciers covered the planet in the "snowball ...
Astronomy
Jun 26, 2014
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The vast majority of the stars in our galaxy are known as "red dwarfs," small, cool bodies visible only through a telescope.
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2014
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Red dwarfs comprise about 80 percent of the stars in the Universe, but their habitable zone—the distance from a star where liquid water may pool on the surface of the planet—is far more hostile than scientists have hoped.
Astronomy
Jun 12, 2014
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Among the most sought-after prizes in astronomy these days are "exomoons," or moons orbiting exoplanets. Although astronomers have detected more than a thousand exoplanets, any exomoons they might harbor have so far eluded ...
Astronomy
May 13, 2014
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In the Star Wars universe, everyone's favourite furry aliens, the Ewoks, famously lived on the "forest moon of Endor". In scientific terms, the Ewok's home world would be referred to as an exomoon, which is simply a moon ...
Astronomy
Apr 28, 2014
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Alien planets circling the most common stars in the universe may often have strange lobster-shaped oceans on their surfaces, researchers in China now say.
Astronomy
Mar 13, 2014
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(Phys.org) —Swirling, stormy clouds may be ever-present on cool celestial orbs called brown dwarfs. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that most brown dwarfs are roiling with one or more planet-size ...
Astronomy
Jan 7, 2014
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(Phys.org) —A pair of researchers at Peking University in Beijing China, has extended the capabilities of an existing computer simulation that is used to study tidally locked exoplanets. In their paper published in Proceedings ...
(Phys.org) —The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Today, an international team of astronomers announced ...
Astronomy
Dec 18, 2013
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(Phys.org) —On Earth, life leaves telltale signals in the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is ultimately responsible for the high oxygen levels and the thick ozone layer. Microbes emit methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, ...
Astronomy
Sep 10, 2013
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