Near Earth Objects
Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are small solar system bodies whose orbits sometimes bring them close to the Earth, thereby posing a potential threat. Because NEOs are constantly being replenished from the...
View ArticleFinding a needle in a space haystack
Stephanie Bernard is one in 24 million. The University of Melbourne PhD candidate is the only Australian given access to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and she is using her time to explore one of the...
View ArticleNGC 6357: Cosmic 'winter' wonderland
Although there are no seasons in space, this cosmic vista invokes thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. It is, in fact, a region called NGC 6357 where radiation from hot, young stars is energizing the...
View ArticleScientists observe first planet-induced stellar pulsations
For the first time, astronomers from MIT and elsewhere have observed a star pulsing in response to its orbiting planet.
View ArticleTemperate earth-sized worlds found in extraordinarily rich planetary system...
Astronomers have found a system of seven Earth-sized planets just 40 light-years away. They were detected as they passed in front of their parent star, the dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. Three of them lie in...
View ArticleNASA's Kepler provides another peek at ultra-cool neighbor
On Feb. 22, astronomers announced that the ultra-cool dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1, hosts a total of seven Earth-size planets that are likely rocky, a discovery made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in...
View ArticleMysterious isolated object investigated by astronomers
(Phys.org)—An international team of astronomers led by Philippe Delorme of the Grenoble Alpes University in France has recently investigated a mysterious object designated CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9...
View ArticleTracing aromatic molecules in the early universe
A molecule found in car engine exhaust fumes that is thought to have contributed to the origin of life on Earth has made astronomers heavily underestimate the amount of stars that were forming in the...
View Article'Iceball' planet discovered through microlensing
Scientists have discovered a new planet with the mass of Earth, orbiting its star at the same distance that we orbit our sun. The planet is likely far too cold to be habitable for life as we know it,...
View ArticleAstronomers confirm nearby star a good model of our early solar system
NASA's SOFIA aircraft, a 747 loaded with a 2.5-meter telescope in the back and stripped of most creature comforts in the front, took a big U-turn over the Pacific west of Mexico.
View ArticleObservatories combine to crack open the Crab Nebula
Astronomers have produced a highly detailed image of the Crab Nebula, by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves seen by the...
View ArticlePrimitive atmosphere discovered around 'Warm Neptune'
A pioneering new study uncovering the 'primitive atmosphere' surrounding a distant world could provide a pivotal breakthrough in the search to how planets form and develop in far-flung galaxies.
View ArticleThe art of exoplanets
The moon hanging in the night sky sent Robert Hurt's mind into deep space—to a region some 40 light years away, in fact, where seven Earth-sized planets crowded close to a dim, red sun.
View ArticleY-type stars
Brown dwarf stars are failed stars. Their masses are so small, less than about eighty Jupiter-masses, that they lack the ability to heat up their interiors to the roughly ten million kelvin...
View ArticleTRAPPIST-1 is older than our solar system
If we want to know more about whether life could survive on a planet outside our solar system, it's important to know the age of its star. Young stars have frequent releases of high-energy radiation...
View ArticleLarge asteroid to safely pass earth on September 1
Asteroid Florence, a large near-Earth asteroid, will pass safely by Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles, (7.0 million kilometers, or about 18 Earth-Moon distances)....
View ArticleScientists improve brown dwarf weather forecasts
Dim objects called brown dwarfs, less massive than the sun but more massive than Jupiter, have powerful winds and clouds–specifically, hot patchy clouds made of iron droplets and silicate dust....
View ArticleSearching for distant worlds with a flying telescope
Researchers from the University of Bern, using an observatory on board a jumbo jet, have observed how the extrasolar Planet GJ 1214b is passing in front of its star, causing a kind of mini-eclipse. The...
View ArticleNASA's Webb Telescope to witness galactic infancy
Scientists will use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to study sections of the sky previously observed by NASA's Great Observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space...
View ArticleThe scientific quest to explain Kepler's most enigmatic find
Some 1,500 light years from Earth, a mystery of stellar proportions is playing out. A singular star out there captured scientists' and the public's imagination in September 2015 with its strangely...
View Article