Moons are planets too
What makes a planet a planet? The answer turns out to be rather contentious. The official definition of a planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is that a planet must satisfy three conditions:.....»»
If rogue planets are everywhere, how could we explore them?
At one time, astronomers believed that the planets formed in their current orbits, which remained stable over time. But more recent observations, theory, and calculations have shown that planetary systems are subject to shake-ups and change. Periodic.....»»
New image reveals secrets of planet birth
A spectacular new image released today by the European Southern Observatory gives us clues about how planets as massive as Jupiter could form. Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), researc.....»»
JWST observations find water for the first time in the inner disk around a young star with giant planets
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the MPIA-led MINDS research collaboration discovered water in the inner region of a disk of gas and dust around the young star PDS 70. Astronomers expect terrestrial planets to be forming in that zone. This is th.....»»
New legged robots designed to explore planets as a team
Even if one robot fails, the rest of the team can offset its loss. Enlarge / The robots exploring a simulated alien environment. (credit: ETH Zurich / Takahiro Miki) While rovers have made incredible discoveries, their w.....»»
Astronomers spot first evidence of two planets sharing the same orbit
Two planets in one orbit? It could be possible, according to new research looking at planetary system PDS 70......»»
New study reveals NASA"s Roman could find 400 Earth-mass rogue planets
New research by scientists from NASA and Japan's Osaka University suggests that rogue planets—worlds that drift through space untethered to a star—far outnumber planets that orbit stars. The results imply that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Teles.....»»
A new, thin-lensed telescope design could far surpass James Webb—goodbye mirrors, hello diffractive lenses
Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 planets outside of the solar system to date. The grand question is whether any of these planets are home to life. To find the answer, astronomers will likely need more powerful telescopes than exist today......»»
An Astrobiologist’s Search for Life in Space—and Meaning on Earth
In Life on Other Planets, Aomawa Shields talks about her hunt for habitable exoplanets as a classically trained actress and one of the few Black women in astronomy......»»
Study reports melting curve of superionic ammonia under icy planetary interior conditions
Icy planets, such as Uranus (U) and Neptune (N), are found in both our solar system and other solar systems across the universe. Nonetheless, these planets, characterized by a thick atmosphere and a mantle made of volatile materials (e.g., hydrogen w.....»»
How engineers on the ground fixed the Juice spacecraft’s stuck antenna
In April the Juice spacecraft launched to investigate the icy moons of Jupiter, but there was a problem: an antenna was stuck and wasn't deploying......»»
Solving the RIME deployment mystery on ESA"s Juice mission
When the RIME antenna on ESA's Juice mission failed to deploy a few days after launch, the engineering teams faced the mighty challenge of understanding the fault and rectifying it. At stake was a chance to see inside Jupiter's mysterious icy moons......»»
First ultraviolet data collected by European Space Agency"s JUICE mission
The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft has successfully completed its initial commissioning following the April 14 launch......»»
Study shows the Earth formed from dry, rocky building blocks
Billions of years ago, in the giant disk of dust, gas, and rocky material that orbited our young sun, larger and larger bodies coalesced to eventually give rise to the planets, moons, and asteroids we see today......»»
"Sandwich" discovery offers new explanation for planet formation
Scientists have made a new discovery on how small planets might form. Researchers at the University of Warwick investigated the "birth environment" of planets—areas of gas and dust that swirl around a central star—known as the protoplanetary disk.....»»
Astronomers puzzled by "planet that shouldn"t exist"
The search for planets outside our solar system—exoplanets—is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. Over the past few decades, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been detected and astronomers now estimate that on average there is at l.....»»
Paper suggests there could be captured planets in the Oort cloud
Our solar system has had a chaotic past. Earth and the other planets are now in stable orbits, but while they were forming they experienced drastic location shifts. Jupiter was likely much closer to the sun than it is now, and its shift not only shif.....»»
Can we predict if a system will have giant planets?
Prediction is one of the hallmarks of scientific endeavors. Scientists pride themselves on being able to predict physical realities based on inputs. So it should come as no surprise that a team of scientists at Notre Dame has developed a theory that.....»»
An element essential to life discovered on one of Saturn"s moons, raising hopes of finding alien microbes
Enceladus is the tiny moon of Saturn that seems to have it all. Its icy surface is intricately carved by ongoing geological processes. Its icy shell overlies an internal, liquid ocean. There, chemically charged warm water seeps out of the rocky core.....»»
How to see 5 planets line up in the sky on Saturday morning
Wake up early this weekend to catch a celestial sight: Five planets will line up in the sky before sunrise on Saturday......»»
The search for habitable moons in the solar system is heating up
Recent research has found phosphorus, one of the building blocks for life, at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus......»»