‘Asteroid’ Hygiea Could Actually Be Smallest Dwarf Planet in the Solar System
Astronomers using ESO’s SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the asteroid Hygiea could be classified as a dwarf planet. The…
Planets
New Models Show There Are Many Gas Giant Exoplanets Waiting to Be Discovered
There is an as-yet-unseen population of Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby Sun-like stars, awaiting discovery by future missions. Washington, DC — There is an as-yet-unseen population…
New Study Reveals Evidence That Venus Was Once Habitable
Venus may have been a temperate planet hosting liquid water for 2-3 billion years, until a dramatic transformation starting over 700 million years ago resurfaced…
Surprise: Saturn’s Icy Rings May Actually Be As Old As the Solar System Itself
Research of Cassini data suggests icy rings are as old as the solar system itself. No one knows for certain when Saturn’s iconic rings formed,…
New Observations May Finally Explain the Mysterious Fading of Tabby’s Star
A Columbia study suggests chunks of an exomoon’s dusty outer layers of ice, gas and carbonaceous rock may be accumulating in a disk surrounding star….
Kepler Data Used to Identify 41 New Transiting Planets
Using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, scientists have verified 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems, ranging from Earth-size to more than seven…
Astronomers Discover a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a fifth moon, designated P5, orbiting Pluto that is irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across….
Tidal Heating Suggests Less Habitable Planets
Tidal heating, which is basically gravitational heating of a planet via tides, suggests that the number of habitable planets could be roughly half of what…
Revealing Data from Super-Earth 55 Cancri e
Sitting 40 million light-years away, researchers were able to gain a better understand of 55 Cancri e and its environment. Using observations from NASA’s Spitzer…
Can Jupiter-Like Planets Lead to Earth-Like Planets?
Scientists are searching for Earth-like planets by searching near Jupiter-like planets. Using data from NASA’s Kepler mission, scientists have identified 63 candidate hot Jupiter systems,…
Schumann Resonance Could Help Reveal the Solar System’s Origins
In 2011 researchers realized that they could use NASA’s Vector Electric Field Instrument aboard the Air Force’s Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System satellite to detect Schumann…
Saturn’s Moon Phoebe has Planet-Like Qualities
More than 60 moons orbit Saturn and by combining data from NASA’s Cassini mission with modeling techniques, scientists have so far been able to identify…
Three Earthlike Planets Could be Hospitable to Life
As NASA’s Kepler Mission continues to supply important data and continuously monitors stars for transit signals, astronomers from Cornell University focused on 80 M dwarf…
Earth in Motion and the Galaxies Around it
Once scientists realized that their understanding of the distribution of galaxies was incorrect, researchers began studying the large scale structure of the universe to better…
Rogue Planets Captured by Stars
According to a new study set to be published this week, rogue planets might not be alone forever. The study details how rogue planets are…
Runaway Planets at 30 Million MPH
It’s hard to imagine planets that zip around at 30 million mph, but it was only a few years ago that astronomers found a “flying…
Simulations Show Jupiter’s Core is Liquefying
Scientists now have a better understanding of gas giant exoplanets and what is going on in their cores. By studying computer simulations, scientists believe that…
MESSENGER Reveals New Data about Mercury
There is more to Mercury than scientists previously thought. MESSENGER, the first ever probe to enter orbit around Mercury, has collected more than four million…