Exoplanets: Weird, Wondrous Worlds [Video]
There’s a huge amount of variety among exoplanets – planets located outside our solar system. There are water worlds, lava planets, egg-shaped worlds, planets with…
There’s a huge amount of variety among exoplanets – planets located outside our solar system. There are water worlds, lava planets, egg-shaped worlds, planets with…
Scientists will compare thermophysical properties from rover to orbital data and analog measurements gathered on Earth to understand rock record. Launched in 2011, NASA’s Mars…
New views from ESA’s Mars Express reveal fascinating ice-related features in Mars’ Utopia region – home to the largest known impact basin not only on…
Vast stores of helium from the Big Bang lingering in the core suggest Earth formed inside a solar nebula. Helium-3, a rare isotope of helium…
A new study assesses the planetary context in which the detection of methane in an exoplanet’s atmosphere could be considered a compelling sign of life….
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, now under construction, will test new technologies for space-based planet hunting. The mission aims to photograph worlds and dusty…
Salt water within the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa could be transporting oxygen into an ice-covered ocean of liquid water where it could potentially…
NASA’s Juno mission captured this view of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere during the spacecraft’s 39th close flyby of the planet on January 12, 2022. Zooming in…
One of the many goals of the James Webb Space Telescope is to help characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets using a technique called spectroscopy, which…
In the search for Earth-like planets, University of Rochester scientist Miki Nakajima turns to computer simulations of moon formations. Earth’s moon is vitally important in…
Findings could have implications for our understanding of distant, water-rich planets. Researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas have discovered a new form of…
Earth formed from the Sun’s protoplanetary disk about 4.6 billion years ago. In the beginning, it was a molten spheroid with scorching temperatures. Over time,…
By amassing in high-density regions, dust grains avoid drifting toward the star they are orbiting. A key step in the formation of new planets may…
March Equinox Welcomes ‘Astronomical’ Spring Did you know our planet has two types of seasons? They are meteorological and astronomical. What’s the difference? “Meteorological seasons”…
What Is an Atmosphere? An atmosphere is a layer (or several layers) of gas that surrounds a planet, or other celestial body. If a celestial…
Evidence suggests surface minerals of outer main-belt asteroids, proposed to have sourced building blocks of Earth’s water and life, are only stable at low temperatures….
Researchers at Yale and Caltech have a bold new theory to explain how Earth transformed itself from a fiery, carbon-clouded ball of rocks into a…
The Solar System has eight planets. In 2006, astronomers reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet, the same class as contains Eris, Sedna, Quaoar, Ceres, and…