New evidence gathered by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury indicates the planet closest to the sun has shrunk up to 7 kilometers in radius over the past 4 billion years, much more than earlier estimates.
Space Exploration
Mar 16, 2014
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(Phys.org) —An atmospheric peculiarity the Earth shares with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune is likely common to billions of planets, University of Washington astronomers have found, and knowing that may help in the ...
Astronomy
Dec 9, 2013
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Astronomers have found the shattered remains of an asteroid that contained huge amounts of water orbiting an exhausted star, or white dwarf. This suggests that the star GD 61 and its planetary system – located about 150 ...
Astronomy
Oct 10, 2013
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(Phys.org) —NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting ...
Astronomy
Apr 18, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Even dying stars could host planets with life—and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets ...
Astronomy
Feb 25, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Twin NASA probes orbiting Earth's moon have generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body.
Space Exploration
Dec 5, 2012
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The mantles of Earth and other rocky planets are rich in magnesium and oxygen. Due to its simplicity, the mineral magnesium oxide is a good model for studying the nature of planetary interiors. New work from a team led by ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 22, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The first of two NASA spacecraft to study the moon in unprecedented detail has entered lunar orbit.
Space Exploration
Jan 1, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Mercury, the smallest of the eight planets with a diameter of 4900 kilometres and the closest to the Sun, looks more like the Moon than the Earth from the outside. It is the only rocky planet that has a global ...
Space Exploration
Dec 23, 2011
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(PhysOrg.com) -- By tracking atmospheric features on Neptune, a UA planetary scientist has accurately determined the planet's rotation, a feat that had not been previously achieved for any of the gas planets in our solar ...
Astronomy
Jun 29, 2011
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