Think of the International Space Station, and most likely you imagine an orbiting laboratory, where scientists observe how plants, materials, and humans react to microgravity conditions. But during the past decade, the station ...
Space Exploration
Nov 17, 2020
0
23
An international team of scientists recently measured the spectrum of the atmosphere of a rare hot Neptune exoplanet, whose discovery by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was announced just last month.
Astronomy
Oct 26, 2020
0
67
TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched in 2018 with the goal of discovering small planets around the Sun's nearest neighbors, stars bright enough to allow for follow-up characterizations of their planets' ...
Astronomy
Oct 26, 2020
2
695
If a solar system is a family, then some planets leave home early whether they want to or not. Once they've left the gravitational embrace of their family, they're pretty much destined to drift through interstellar space ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2020
9
744
In February of 2017, the scientific community rejoiced as NASA announced that a nearby star (TRAPPIST-1) had a system of no less than seven rocky planets. Since that time, astronomers have conducted all kinds of follow-up ...
Astronomy
Jul 17, 2020
0
127
When the New Horizons spacecraft passed by Pluto in 2015, one of the many fascinating features its images revealed was that this small, frigid world in the distant solar system has a hazy atmosphere. Now, new data helps explain ...
Space Exploration
May 14, 2020
19
26
How are celestial bodies created? Aside from philosophical questions, researchers are taking practical steps to investigate the very first moments when planets are born—on a sounding rocket launching from Sweden next week.
Astronomy
Nov 15, 2019
0
19
In The Little Prince, the classic novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the titular prince lives on a house-sized asteroid so small that he can watch the sunset any time of day by moving his chair a few steps.
Astronomy
Sep 11, 2019
7
441
With a new telescope situated on a scenic plateau in Tenerife, Spain, MIT planetary scientists now have an added way to search for Earth-sized exoplanets. Artemis, the first ground-based telescope of the SPECULOOS Northern ...
Astronomy
Jun 21, 2019
0
0
An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests the large dome found on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres is made of slurry—a mix of salty brine and solid particles. In their paper published in ...
