Space

Giant Planets Around Young Star Raise Questions About How Planets Form

Researchers have identified a young star with four Jupiter- and Saturn-sized planets in orbit around it, the first time that so many giant planets have been detected in such a young system. The system has also set a new record for the most extreme range of orbits yet observed: The outermost planet is more than ...

Troy Oakes

Cl Tau with orbiting giant gas planets.

Astronomers Discover Super-Earth Around Barnard’s Star

The potentially rocky planet, known as Barnard’s star b, is a “super-Earth” with a mass of at least 3.2 times that of the Earth, and it orbits around its host star once every 233 days. The results, published in the journal Nature, show the planet lies at a distant region from the star known as the ...

Troy Oakes

Lasers Could Be Used as a Porch Light to Attract Alien Astronomers

If extraterrestrial intelligence exists somewhere in our galaxy, a new MIT study proposes that lasers on Earth could, in principle, be fashioned into something of a planetary porch light — a beacon strong enough to attract attention from as far as 20,000 light-years away. The research, which author James Clark calls a “feasibility study,” appears ...

Troy Oakes

Study Witnesses First Moments of a Star Dying in Finest Detail

An international research team, including The Australian National University (ANU), has used the Kepler space telescope in coordination with ground-based telescopes to witness the first moments of a star dying in unprecedented detail. The astronomers witnessed the star dying a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, as part of a project that ...

Troy Oakes

Doomed Star in Milky Way Threatens Rare Gamma-Ray Burst

University of Sydney astronomers, working with international colleagues, have found a star system like none seen before in our galaxy. Scientists believe that one of the stars — about 8,000 light-years from Earth — is the first known candidate in the Milky Way to produce a dangerous gamma-ray burst, among the most energetic events in ...

Troy Oakes

Doomed star in the Milky Way.

NASA Learns More About Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua

In November 2017, scientists pointed NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope toward the object known as ‘Oumuamua — the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system. The infrared Spitzer was one of many telescopes pointed at ‘Oumuamua in the weeks after its discovery that October. ‘Oumuamua was too faint for Spitzer to detect when it looked more ...

Troy Oakes

The Planet Mercury Is Reportedly Shrinking

Mercury, the smallest planet in our solar system, is reportedly shrinking. It is estimated that the planet’s diameter has contracted by almost 14 kilometers since it was first formed almost 4 billion years ago. Mercury, a shrinking planet Earth’s massive mountains and steep cliffs are said to be the result of colliding tectonic plates. But ...

Nspirement Staff

The planet Mercury.

Evidence of Outburst Flooding Indicates Plentiful Water on Early Mars

The presence of water on early Mars has been theorized for centuries. Early telescopes revealed ice caps, and early astronomers noted channels that were hypothesized to be natural rivers or creature-created canals. Over the past two decades, rovers Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity have sent back invaluable data to scientists who are trying to interpret ...

Troy Oakes

Astronomers Discover Giant That Shaped Our Milky Way

Some 10 billion years ago, the Milky Way merged with a large galaxy. The stars from this partner, named Gaia-Enceladus, make up most of the Milky Way’s halo and also shaped its thick disk, giving it its inflated form. A description of this mega-merger, discovered by an international team led by University of Groningen astronomer ...

Troy Oakes

Confirmed Collision Between 2 Milky Way Satellite Galaxies

If you’re standing in the Southern Hemisphere on a clear night, you can see two luminous clouds offset from the Milky Way. These clouds of stars are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, called the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud, or SMC and LMC. Using newly released data from a new, powerful ...

Troy Oakes

A collision between two Milky Way satellite galaxies.