A new Climate Model Suggests That Venus Never had Oceans
A new study has cast doubt on whether or not Venus ever had oceans, challenging the notion that it was once a potentially-habitable world.
Europa has Water in its Atmosphere
New research indicates that Jupiter’s moon Europa has water vapor in its trailing atmosphere, which could inform missions headed there in the next few years.
Nancy Grace Roman Just Passed a Critical Design Review
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope just completed it’s Mission Critical Design Review, a major milestone on the road to the launch of this next-generation observatory!
A Technique to Find Oceans on Other Worlds
A new study shows how next-generation observatories could directly observe oceans on exoplanets, which could narrow the search for extraterrestrial life.
Astronomers Look at Super-Earths That had Their Atmospheres Stripped Away by Their Stars
A new study examines two rocky exoplanets (TOI-1634b and TOI-1685b) that appear to have been stripped of their atmospheres.
The Early Solar System was Messier and More Violent Than Previously Believed
Our conventional models of planet formation may have to be updated, according to a pair of new papers. Accretion is the keyword in current planet formation theory. The idea is that the planets formed out of the solar nebula, the material left over after the Sun formed. They did this through accretion, where small particles …
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Astronomers Detect Clouds on an Exoplanet, and Even Measure Their Altitude
An international research team shows how combining data from multiple observatories allowed them to detect clouds in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
Mars Was Too Small to Ever be Habitable
Mars and water. Those words can trigger an avalanche of speculation, evidence, hypotheses, and theories. Mars has some water now, but it’s frozen, and most of it’s buried. There’s only a tiny bit of water vapour in the atmosphere. Evidence shows that it was much wetter in the past. In its ancient past, the planet …
If Aliens Are Out There, We’ll Meet Them in a Few Hundred Million Years
A new study indicates that aliens are probably out there, occupying half of the Universe, and we’ll likely meet them in 200 million or to 2 billion years.
Ocean Worlds With Hydrogen-Rich Atmospheres Could be the Perfect Spots for Life
A new study has identified another class of exoplanet that could drastically increase the odds of finding life beyond the Solar System.