Journey to a metal-rich world: NASA's Psyche is ready to launch
The spacecraft is targeting an Oct. 12 liftoff atop a Falcon Heavy rocket. Its destination, a metal-rich asteroid, may tell us more about how planets form.
The spacecraft is targeting an Oct. 12 liftoff atop a Falcon Heavy rocket. Its destination, a metal-rich asteroid, may tell us more about how planets form.
Space Exploration
Oct 11, 2023
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17
Are we alone? This question is nearly as old as humanity itself. Today, this question in astronomy focuses on finding life beyond our planet. Are we, as a species, and as a planet, alone? Or is there life somewhere else?
Astronomy
Sep 16, 2023
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49
A Neptune-sized planet denser than steel has been discovered by an international team of astronomers, who believe its composition could be the result of a giant planetary clash.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 30, 2023
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1218
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the MPIA-led MINDS research collaboration discovered water in the inner region of a disk of gas and dust around the young star PDS 70. Astronomers expect terrestrial planets to be forming ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 24, 2023
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114
Billions of years ago, in the giant disk of dust, gas, and rocky material that orbited our young sun, larger and larger bodies coalesced to eventually give rise to the planets, moons, and asteroids we see today.
Planetary Sciences
Jul 5, 2023
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3332
How close can a rocky planet be to a star, and still sustain water and life?
Astrobiology
Jun 21, 2023
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82
Infrared measurements of TRAPPIST-1 c indicate that it is probably not as Venus-like as once imagined.
Planetary Sciences
Jun 19, 2023
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290
An international team of astronomers including several Dutch researchers has observed, for the first time, the benzene molecule (C6H6) in a planet-forming disk around a young star. Besides benzene, they saw many other, smaller ...
Astronomy
May 11, 2023
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315
GJ 486 b is about 30% larger than the Earth and three times as massive, which means it is a rocky world with stronger gravity than Earth. It orbits a red dwarf star in just under 1.5 Earth days. It is too close to its star ...
Planetary Sciences
May 1, 2023
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93
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have taken a first look at their data that probe the chemistry of the regions of disks around young stars where rocky planets form. Already at that stage, the data reveal ...
Astronomy
Apr 13, 2023
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237