Planetary Formation
Titan’s Giant Cloud Explained
[/caption] Titan is making news again, this time with Cassini images from 2010 showing a storm nearly as big as…
Genesis Sheds Light On Sun And Solar System Formation
[/caption] For 886 days between 2001 and 2004, a tiny spacecraft named Genesis sat parked at Lagrange Point L1 quietly…
The Flip Side of Exoplanet Orbits
[/caption] It was once thought that our planet was part of a "typical" solar system. Inner rocky worlds, outlying gas…
Meteorites Illuminate Mystery of Chromium in Earth’s Core
It’s generally assumed that the Earth’s overall composition is similar to that of chondritic meteorites, the primitive, undifferentiated building blocks…
First-Time Views of Solar System Births
[/caption] Chalk up a sizzling success for the HiCIAO planet-hunter camera on the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii: it's captured this unprecedented…
Astronomy Without A Telescope – Forbidden Planets
[/caption] Binary star systems can have planets – although these are generally assumed to be circumbinary (where the orbit encircles…
Late, Big Bombardments Brought Heavy Metals to Earth
[/caption] One of the fundamental problems in planetary science is trying to determine how planetary bodies in the inner solar…
Astronomy Without A Telescope – So Why Not Exo-Oceans?
[/caption] Well, not only may up to 25% of Sun-like stars have Earth-like planets - but if they are in…
Astronomy Without A Telescope – No Metal, No Planet
[/caption] A Japanese team of astronomers have reported a strong correlation between the metallicity of dusty protoplanetary disks and their…
Astronomy Without A Telescope – A Snowball’s Chance
[/caption] Wanna build celestial objects? I mean it sounds easy - you just start with a big cloud of dust…