The Earth, the solar system, the entire Milky Way, and the few thousand galaxies closest to us move in a vast “bubble” that is 250 million light-years in diameter. Here, the average density of matter is half as large as for the rest of the universe. This is the hypothesis put forward by a theoretical ...
Using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), researchers have found more than 300 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), minor planets located in the far reaches of the solar system, including more than 100 new discoveries. Published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, the study also describes a new approach for finding similar types of objects and ...
Researchers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed an extreme planet where they suspect it rains iron. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400°C, high enough to vaporize metals. Strong winds carry iron vapor to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets. David Ehrenreich, a professor ...
Axiom, an aerospace company based in Houston, Texas, has announced that it has signed a contract with SpaceX to send three paying tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2021. The travelers will make the journey in SpaceX’s reusable spacecraft Crew Dragon. Space tourists “This history-making flight will represent a watershed moment in the ...
It is already hard to believe that there is ice on Mercury, where daytime temperatures reach 400°C, or 750°F. Now, an upcoming study says that the Vulcan heat on the planet closest to the S°un likely helps make some of that ice. As with Earth, asteroids delivered most of Mercury’s water, the scientific consensus holds. ...
Late last year, news broke that the star Betelgeuse was fading significantly, ultimately dropping to around 40 percent of its usual brightness. The activity fueled popular speculation that the red supergiant would soon explode as a massive supernova. But astronomers have more benign theories to explain the star’s dimming behavior. And scientists at the University of ...
Organic compounds called thiophenes are found on Earth in coal, crude oil, and oddly enough, in white truffles, the mushroom beloved by epicureans and wild pigs. Thiophenes were also recently discovered on Mars, and Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze‑Makuch thinks the presence of organic molecules would be consistent with the presence of early life ...
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has captured its highest-resolution panorama yet of the Martian surface. Composed of more than 1,000 images taken during the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday and carefully assembled over the ensuing months, the composite contains 1.8 billion pixels of Martian landscape. The rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, used its telephoto lens to produce the panorama; ...
University of British Columbia astronomy student Michelle Kunimoto has discovered 17 new planets, including a potentially habitable, Earth-sized world, by combing through data gathered by NASA’s Kepler mission. Over its original 4-year mission, the Kepler satellite looked for planets, especially those that lie in the “Habitable Zones” of their stars, where liquid water could exist ...
A little over a year after landing, China’s spacecraft Chang’e-4 is continuing to unveil secrets from the far side of the Moon. The latest study, published on Feb. 26 in Science Advances, reveals what lurks below the surface. Chang’e-4 (CE-4) landed on the eastern floor of the Van Kármán crater, near the Moon’s south pole, ...
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