EXTRA SOLAR

2,688 articles

Ice's crucial role in planet and comet formation mapped by Webb
Dec 07, 2023 (SPX)
Ice is a fundamental component in the process of planetary and cometary formation. It acts as a binding agent for solid dust particles, facilitating their aggre...
Can signs of life be detected from Saturn's frigid moon
Dec 06, 2023 (SPX)
During its 20-year mission, NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered that ice plumes spew from Enceladus' surface at approximately 800 miles per hour (400 m/s). The...
Ariel moves from drawing board to construction phase
Dec 06, 2023 (ESA)
This concludes the important preliminary design phase B2 of the mission that lasted 19 months. During this phase, the design of the spacecraft has been refined,...
Shedding light on the synthesis of sugars before the origin of life
Dec 04, 2023 (SPX)
The emergence of life on Earth from simple chemicals is one of the most exciting yet challenging topics in biochemistry and perhaps all of science. Modern lifef...
Webb study reveals rocky planets can form in extreme environments
Dec 01, 2023 (ESA)
These results suggest that the conditions for rocky-planet formation, typically found in discs in regions where low-mass stars are formed, can also occur in reg...
Interstellar ice may hold the key to understanding life's origins
Dec 01, 2023 (SPX)
Traditionally, it was believed that amino acids, key constituents of life, emerged from the chemical reactions in the early Earth's "primordial soup." An altern...
Discovery of planet too big for its sun throws off solar system formation models
Dec 01, 2023 (SPX)
In a paper published online in the journal Science, researchers report the discovery of a planet more than 13 times as massive as Earth orbiting the "ultracool"...
Astronomers find 'tilted' planets even in pristine solar systems
Nov 30, 2023 (SPX)
Astronomers had long assumed that planets with pitchy, angled orbits - orbits that don't align with the spin axis of their host sun - are the result of some hig...
First extragalactic exoplanet disc spotted outside of the Milky Way
Nov 30, 2023 (SPX)
The disc surrounds a young massive star located in a stellar nursery called N180, residing in a neighbouring dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. At ...
Minimalist or maximalist? The life of a microbe a mile underground
Nov 29, 2023 (SPX)
In total, the researchers characterized nearly 600 microbial genomes - some of which are new to science. Out of this batch, Northwestern geoscientist Magdalena ...
Alien haze, cooked in a lab, clears view to distant water worlds
Nov 28, 2023 (SPX)
The research offers new tools to study the atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets and will help scientists model how water exoplanets form and evolve, findings tha...
Deformable Mirrors in Space: Key Technology to Directly Image Earth Twins
Nov 23, 2023 (JPL)
Detecting an Earth-like planet poses significant challenges as the planet is approximately 10 billion times fainter than its parent star. The main challenge is ...
Hubble measures the size of the nearest transiting Earth-sized planet
Nov 20, 2023 (ESA)
The diminutive planet, LTT 1445Ac, was first discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in 2022. But the geometry of the planet's orbital plane ...
Webb detects water vapor, sulfur dioxide and sand clouds in the atmosphere of a nearby exoplanet
Nov 16, 2023 (SPX)
Astronomers worldwide are harnessing the advanced capabilities of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to conduct gro...
NASA data reveals possible reason some exoplanets are shrinking
Nov 16, 2023 (JPL)
Exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) come in a variety of sizes, from small, rocky planets to colossal gas giants. In the middle lie rocky super-Earths...
Supporting the search for alien life by exploring geologic faulting on icy moons
Nov 16, 2023 (SPX)
Conducting these types of geologic investigations prior to launch and arrival of space exploration missions, helps identify interesting locations for lander exp...
Webb follows neon signs toward new thinking on planet formation
Nov 16, 2023 (SPX)
Differences in the neon readings between Spitzer and Webb point to a never-before-observed change in high-energy radiation that reaches the disk, which eventual...
Bouncing comets could deliver building blocks for life to exoplanets
Nov 15, 2023 (SPX)
In order to deliver organic material, comets need to be travelling relatively slowly - at speeds below 15 kilometres per second. At higher speeds, the essential...
Yucatan underwater caves host diverse microbial communities
Nov 13, 2023 (SPX)
Although previous researchers have collected water and microbial samples from the cave entrances and easily accessible sinkholes, the Northwestern-led team reac...
Extended habitability of exoplanets due to subglacial water
Nov 10, 2023 (SPX)
The classical Habitable Zone, often colloquially referred to as the "Goldilocks Zone," typically defines the region around a star where conditions allow the pre...
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