Space and astronomy news
Most stars will end their lives as white dwarfs. White dwarfs are the remnant cores of once-luminous stars like our Sun, but they’ve left their lives of fusion behind and no longer generate heat. They’re destined to glow with only their residual energy for billions of years before they eventually fade to black. Could life …
Continue reading “Planet Found in the Habitable Zone of a White Dwarf”
In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll feel balanced with today’s topic: hydrostatic equilibrium!
Mars is a parched planet ruled by global dust storms. It’s also a frigid world, where night-time winter temperatures fall to -140 C (-220 F) at the poles. But it wasn’t always a dry, barren, freezing, inhospitable wasteland. It used to be a warm, wet, almost inviting place, where liquid water flowed across the surface, …
Continue reading “We Might Know Why Mars Lost its Magnetic Field”
A new study by David Kipping and the Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler campaign has revealed another exomoon candidate!
When it comes to observing protoplanetary disks, the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) is probably the champion. ALMA was the first telescope to peer inside the almost inscrutable protoplanetary disks surrounding young stars and watch planets forming. ALMA advanced our understanding of the planet-forming process, though our knowledge of the entire process is still in …
Continue reading “A Star Passed too Close and Tore Out a Chunk of a Protoplanetary Disk”
A team led by Rice University has created a new model of planetary formation that answer how the Solar System is the way it is.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has spotted the magnetosphere of an exoplanet for the first time.
A NASA-supported study by an international multi-disciplinary team has shown what Mars would be like if it orbited a red dwarf star.
After many MANY delays, the James Webb Space Telescope is fully-fueled and ready for the final stage of preparations before launch (still on for Dec. 22nd)!
Some planets orbit their stars so closely that they have extremely high surface temperatures and extremely rapid orbits. Most of the ones astronomers have found are Hot Jupiters— planets in the size range of Jupiter and with similar compositions as Jupiter. Their size and proximity to their star make them easier to spot using the …
Continue reading “TESS Finds a New Mars-Sized Planet (With the Density of Mercury)”