Asteroid Bennu has Already Thrown Material off into Space 11 Times Since OSIRIS-REx Arrived
The OSIRIS-REx mission has revealed some interesting things about the asteroid Bennu, which includes the 11 plumes it witnessed in the past 3 months.
Which Habitable Zones are the Best to Actually Search for Life?
A new study conducted by an international team of scientists examines what the term “habitable zone” means and how next-generation telescopes will test our assumptions.
Jupiter or Earth? Which One’s Which, and Why Do They Look so Similar?
Jupiter: a massive, lifeless gas giant out there on the other side of the asteroid belt. It’s a behemoth, containing 2.5 times as much mass as all the other planets combined. To top it off, it’s named after the Roman God of War. Earth: a tiny rocky world, almost too close to the Sun, where …
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Complex Life Might Require a Very Narrow Habitable Zone
A new study has placed new constraints on the emergence of complex life, which effectively narrows what what we would consider to be a star’s “habitable zone”
A Star’s Outburst is Releasing Organic Molecules Trapped in the ice Around it
A new study by an international team of astronomers has discovered the presence of organic molecules in the disk of a young star.
TESS Finds its Third Planet, a sub-Neptune with a 36-Day Orbit
After only three months of operation, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecraft is delivering on its mission to find more exoplanets. A new paper presents the latest finding: a sub-Neptune planet with a 36-day orbit around its star. This is the third confirmed exoplanet that TESS has found. The planet orbits a K-dwarf star …
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InSight Uses its Seismometer to “Hear” the Sound of Wind on Mars
The InSight lander recently used two its instruments to record vibrations caused by Martian wind, effectively capturing what it sounds like on the surface of Mars.
The Draco Constellation
Located in the northern hemisphere, between the two “dippers”, is the Draco constellation – one of the 48 compiled by Ptolemy and one of the 88 recognized by the IAU.
Astronomers Find One of the Sun’s Sibling Stars. Born From the Same Solar Nebula Billions of Years Ago
The AMBRE project, an international consortium of astronomers, was able to find a star that formed with our Sun (and is almost identical) about 184 light-years away
Super Earth Planet Found Around One of the Closest Stars to us. But it’s Probably a Terrible Place to Live
The Red Dots and CARMENES projects recently announced the discovery of a super-Earth around Barnard’s Star, making it the second-closest exoplanet to Earth.