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A Strange Planet has been Found that’s Smaller than Neptune But 50% More Massive

Astronomers have found another strange exoplanet in a distant solar system. This one’s an oddball because its size is intermediate between Earth and Neptune, yet it’s 50% more massive than Neptune. Astronomers have found what they call “puff planets” in other Solar Systems. Those are planets that are a few times more massive than Earth, …

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A Group of Meteorites All Came From a Destroyed Planetesimal With a Magnetic Core

Before our Solar System had planets, it had planetesimals. Scientists think that most of the meteorites that have struck Earth are fragments of these planetesimals. Scientists also think that these planetesimals either melted completely, very early in their history, or that they remained as little more than collections of rocks, or “rubble piles.” But one …

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Another Collection of Newly Forming Planetary Systems. This Time from the Gemini Planet Imager

Over the next decade, several very powerful telescopes will come online. Observing time on these ‘scopes will be in high demand, and their range of targets will span a whole host of topics in astronomy, astrophysics, and cosomology. One of the topics near the top of the list is exoplanets. But how will astronomers know …

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Pluto and Other Kuiper Belt Objects Started Out With Water Oceans, and Have Been Slowly Freezing Solid for Billions of Years

It seems unlikely that an ocean could persist on a world that never gets closer than 30 astronomical units from the Sun. But that’s the case with Pluto. Evidence shows that it has a sub-surface ocean between 100 to 180 km thick, at the boundary between the core and the mantle. Other Kuiper Belt Objects …

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Space Dust Delivered Water to Vesta, Could it Have Done the Same for Earth?

One of the most enduring questions about Earth regards the origins of its water. Where did it come from? One widely-held theory gives comets the honor of bringing water to Earth. Another one says that Earth’s water came when a protoplanet crashed into early Earth, not only delivering a vast quantity of water, but creating …

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