Using some cosmic detective work, a team of researchers has found evidence that tiny pieces of asteroids from the inner solar system may have crossed a gap to the outer solar system, a feat once thought to be unlikely.
Space Exploration
Aug 6, 2020
1
3228
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are finding that planets have a tough time forming in the rough-and-tumble central region of the massive, crowded star cluster Westerlund 2. Located 20,000 light-years away, ...
Astronomy
May 28, 2020
5
3700
A galactic visitor entered our solar system last year—interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. When astronomers pointed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) toward the comet on 15 and 16 December 2019, for the ...
Astronomy
Apr 20, 2020
2
4251
The hypothesis that the solar system originated from a gigantic cloud of gas and dust was first floated in the second half of the 18th century by German philosopher Immanuel Kant and further developed by French mathematician ...
Astronomy
Mar 24, 2020
35
1016
The isotopic composition of meteorites and terrestrial planets holds important clues about the earliest history of the solar system and the processes of planet formation.
Astronomy
Dec 17, 2019
3
534
Gregory Laughlin and Malena Rice weren't exactly surprised a few weeks ago when they learned that a second interstellar object had made its way into our solar system.
Astronomy
Sep 26, 2019
8
1567
What happens inside a black hole stays inside a black hole, but what happens inside a black hole's "sphere of influence"—the innermost region of a galaxy where a black hole's gravity is the dominant force—is of intense ...
Astronomy
Aug 7, 2019
0
666
The first detection of an interstellar asteroid/comet-like object visiting the Solar system two years ago has sparked ideas about the possibility of interstellar travel. New research from the Technion–Israel Institute of ...
Astronomy
Jun 27, 2019
0
0
The galaxy is littered with planetary systems vastly different from ours. In the solar system, the planet closest to the Sun—Mercury, with an orbit of 88 days—is also the smallest. But NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered ...
Astronomy
May 9, 2019
4
216
A multi-institutional team of researchers has discovered silica mineral quartz in a primitive meteorite, comprising direct evidence of silica condensation within the solar protoplanetary disk, and offering new clues to understanding ...
Space Exploration
Aug 23, 2018
0
222
