Hubble images three debris disks around G-type stars

A team using the Hubble Space Telescope has imaged circumstellar disk structures (CDSs) around three stars similar to the sun. The stars are all G-type solar analogs, and the disks themselves share similarities with our Solar ...

Our sun may have eaten a super-Earth for breakfast

Our solar system sure seems like an orderly place. The orbits of the planets are predictable enough that we can send spacecraft on multi-year journeys to them and they will reliably reach their destinations. But we've only ...

The role of "planet traps" in solar system formation

A team from the Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Modelling laboratory at Paris-Saclay (AIM – CNRS/CEA/Université Paris Diderot) has developed a new model that represents the evolution of protoplanetary disks over millions ...

Solar eclipse to sweep across Australia, Pacific Islands

An annular eclipse of the Sun, when a ring of everyday Sun remains around the Moon's silhouette, will sweep across the Australian outback and into the Pacific Ocean on the morning of May 10, local time. Though about 95% of ...

Quiet Interlude in Solar Max

(Phys.org) —Something unexpected is happening on the Sun. 2013 was supposed to be the year of "solar maximum," the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers ...

Year three: NASA SDO mission highlights

On Feb. 11, 2010, NASA launched an unprecedented solar observatory into space. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) flew up on an Atlas V rocket, carrying instruments that scientists hoped would revolutionize observations ...

Venus caught transiting the Sun

The very rare astronomical event of Venus, the nearest planet to Earth, passing in front of the solar disk on June 5th and 6th, 2012, was captured by an international team headed by Jay Pasachoff (Williams College and Caltech) ...

Sun has "eureka!" moment

(Phys.org)—At the onset of a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on August 20, 2012, this bulbous CME certainly resembled a light bulb. It has the thin outer edge and a bright, glowing core at its center. CMEs are often ...

A Drop in the Bucket

A new technique is being developed to detect water in the protoplanetary disks of other solar systems. If successful, it would help in our understanding of how habitable planets form.

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