planets Archives

November 29, 2022November 29, 2022 by Evan Gough

Baby Gas Giants Cast Shadows on Their Siblings

A computer-generated image depicting a dark protostellar disk seen edge-on at 90 degrees to jets (orange) emanating from the poles of a young star. Such disks are thought to be the precursors of planetary systems, with planets forming as the dust coalesces. RIKEN researchers may have spotted embryos of gas giant planets in one protostellar disk. Credit: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library

A team of astronomers has caught glimpses of gas giants forming around a very young star.

The nascent giants are having a chilling effect on their potential siblings.

February 24, 2022February 24, 2022 by Evan Gough

Mini-Neptunes can Lose gas and Turn Into Super-Earths

An artist's illustration of the mini-Neptune TOI 560.01 losing its atmosphere and transitioning to a super-Earth. Image Credit: Image Credit: Adam Makarenko (Keck Observatory)

Can one type of planet become another? Can a mini-Neptune lose its atmosphere and become a super-Earth? Astronomers have found two examples of mini-Neptunes transitioning to super-Earths, and the discovery might help explain a noted “gap” in the size distribution of exoplanets.

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February 8, 2022February 8, 2022 by Evan Gough

Massive Rocky Planets Probably Don’t Have big Moons

The Earth straddling the limb of the Moon, as seen from above Compton crater on the lunar farside, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

The Moon has orbited Earth since the Solar System’s early days. Anyone who’s ever spent time at the ocean can’t fail to notice the Moon’s effect. The Moon drives the tides even in the world’s most remote inlets and bays. And tides may be vital to life’s emergence.

But if Earth were more massive, the Moon may never have become what it is now. Instead, it would be much smaller. Tides would be much weaker, and life may not have emerged the way it did.

February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 by Evan Gough

A Second Generation of Planets can Form Around a Dying Star

An illustration of a protoplanetary disk. Planets coalesce out of the remaining molecular cloud the star formed out of. Within this accretion disk lay the fundamental elements necessary for planet formation and potential life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC) - February, 2005

When young stars coalesce out of a cloud of molecular hydrogen, a disk of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk surrounds them. This disk is where planets form, and astronomers are getting better at peering into those veiled environments and watching embryonic worlds take shape. But young stars aren’t the only stars with disks of raw material rotating around them.

Some old, dying stars also have disks. Can a second generation of planets form under those conditions?

November 26, 2021November 26, 2021 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Find a Planet That Orbits its Star in Just 16 HOURS!

The newly discovered planet, designated TOI-2109b, is relatively close to its star, at a distance of only about 1.5 million miles out. Credits: Image: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon

Mercury is the speed champion in our Solar System. It orbits the Sun every 88 days, and its average speed is 47 km/s. Its average distance from the Sun is 58 million km (36 million mi), and it’s so fast it’s named after Mercury, the wing-footed God.

But what if instead of Mercury, Jupiter was closest to the Sun? And what if Jupiter was even closer to the Sun than Mercury and far hotter?

November 23, 2021November 23, 2021 by Evan Gough

Here are Hubble’s 2021 Photos of the Outer Solar System

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has completed its annual grand tour of the outer Solar System for 2021. This is the realm of the giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — extending as far as 30 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Unlike the rocky terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars that huddle close to the Sun’s warmth, these far-flung worlds are mostly composed of chilly gaseous soups of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, and methane around a packed, intensely hot, compact core. Note: The planets are not shown to scale in this image. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team

If we had to rely solely on spacecraft to learn about the outer planets, we wouldn’t be making great progress. It takes a massive effort to get a spacecraft to the outer Solar System. But thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we can keep tabs on the gas giants without leaving Earth’s orbit.

December 1, 2020December 1, 2020 by Evan Gough

In the Far Future, Stellar Flybys Will Completely Dismantle the Solar System

A lovely artistic look at our Solar System that's definitely not to scale. Image Credit: NASA

Consumption and disintegration.

Next time you want to be the life of the party—if you’re hanging out with cool nerds that is—just drop that phrase into the conversation. And when they look at you quizzically, just say that’s the eventual fate of the Solar System.

Then adjust your cravat and take another sip of your absinthe.

October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 by Evan Gough

A Rogue Earth-Mass Planet Has Been Discovered Freely Floating in the Milky Way Without a Star

An artist's impression of a rogue planet. Image Credit: By Interpott.nrw - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83123717

If a solar system is a family, then some planets leave home early. Whether they want to or not. Once they’ve left the gravitational embrace of their family, they’re pretty much destined to drift through interstellar space forever, unbound to any star.

Astronomers like to call these drifters “rogue planets,” and they’re getting better at finding them. A team of astronomers have found one of these drifting rogues that’s about the same mass as Mars or Earth.

September 17, 2020September 17, 2020 by Evan Gough

Check Out How Big the Planets and the Moon Will be in Our Sky Over the Next Two Years

This is a screenshot of a data visualization video. It shows the apparent sizes of Solar System objects from our Earthly vantage point. Image Credit: James O'Donoghue

Everything in space is moving. Galaxies collide and merge, massive clouds of gas migrate, and asteroids, comets, and rogue planets zip around and between it all. And in our own Solar System, the planets follow their ancient orbits.

Now a new data visualization shows us just how much our view from Earth changes in two years, as the orbits of the planets change the distance between us and our neighbours.

September 16, 2020September 16, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

Sunrises Across the Solar System

Saturn’s upper atmosphere. Processed using calibrated narrow-angle near-infrared (CB3) and ultraviolet (UV3) and wide-angle red, green, and violet filtered images of Saturn taken by Cassini on November 17 2007. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill.

Scientists have learned a lot about the atmospheres on various worlds in our Solar System simply from planetary sunrises or sunsets. Sunlight streaming through the haze of an atmosphere can be separated into its component colors to create spectra, just as prisms do with sunlight. From the spectra, astronomers can interpret the measurements of light to reveal the chemical makeup of an atmosphere.