Planetary Formation
Scientists Propose a New Kind of Planet: A Smashed Up Torus of Hot Vaporized Rock
Under the right conditions, two colliding rocky bodies might form a temporary structure called a 'synestia'. This rotating mass of…
Finally, the Missing Link in Planetary Formation!
A new study by an international team of scientists may be the "missing link" in our understanding of how planets…
Surprise! Fomalhaut’s Kid Sister Has a Debris Disk Too
The bright star Fomalhaut hosts a spectacular debris disk: a dusty circling plane of small objects where planets form. At…
Rogue Planets Can Find Homes Around Other Stars
[/caption] As crazy as it sounds, free-floating rogue planets have been predicted to exist for quite some time and just…
‘Nomad’ Planets Could Outnumber Stars 100,000 to 1
[/caption] Could the number of wandering planets in our galaxy – planets not orbiting a sun -- be more than…
Scientists Find New Clues About the Interiors of ‘Super-Earth’ Exoplanets
[/caption] As we learned in science class in school, the Earth has a molten interior (the outer core) deep beneath…
Carbon “Super Earths” – Diamond Planets
[/caption]During a laboratory experiment at Ohio State University, researchers were simulating the pressures and conditions necessary to form diamonds in…
Asteroid Lutetia… A Piece Of Earth?
[/caption] According to data received from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, ESO’s New Technology Telescope, and NASA telescopes, strange asteroid Lutetia could…
Planetary Pinball – Uranus Gets The “Tilt”
[/caption] Popular theory on how Uranus ended up with a highly eccentric axis has always been pretty standard - one…
Zooming in on Proto-Planetary Disks
On the road to planetary formation, the first step is an accretion disk around a proto-star. Such disks, known as…