Early Solar System Formation
Finally, Let’s Look at the Asteroid Treasure Returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx
NASA's OSIRIS-REx delivered its precious cargo to Earth on September 24th, 2023. The sample from asteroid Bennu is contained inside…
How Many Planets Could Be in the Kuiper Belt?
A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters investigates the potential existence of Mars-sized free-floating planets (FFPs)—also known as…
JWST Detects Carbon Dioxide in a Centaur for the First Time
A study published today in The Planetary Science Journal examines how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has conducted a…
How Many Stars Formed Together With the Sun in Our Stellar Nebula?
Even though our Sun is now a solitary star, it still has siblings somewhere in the Milky Way. Stars form…
Samples of Asteroid Ryugu Contain More Than 20 Amino Acids
The samples obtained by Hayabusa2 have revealed that the Near Earth Asteroid Ryugu contains 20 strains of amino acids -…
Rings in the Early Solar System Kept our Planet From Becoming a Super-Earth
A team led by Rice University has created a new model of planetary formation that answer how the Solar System…
The Surprising Discovery of Ceramic Chips Inside Meteorites Means There Were Wild Temperature Variations In the Early Solar System
Meteorites are excellent windows into early solar system formation. Many were formed in the those early days, and unlike rocks…
Not all the Earth’s Water Came From Comets
We have comets and asteroids to thank for Earth's water, according to the most widely-held theory among scientists. But it's…
How Do Planets Form? Semarkona Meteorite Shows Some Clues
It may seem all but impossible to determine how the Solar System formed, given that it happened roughly 4.5 billion…
Isotopes May One Day Aid In Planet Search
When we consider samples from the solar nebula, we think about comets and meteorites. These materials come from our solar…