An astronomer from NSF’s NOIRLab has teamed up with a geologist from California State University, Fresno, to make the first estimates of rock types that exist on planets orbiting nearby stars. After studying the chemical composition of “polluted” white dwarfs, they have concluded that most rocky planets orbiting nearby stars are more diverse and exotic […]

The spiral galaxy NGC 105, which is about 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces, is captured in the image from NASA/Hubble ESA’s Space Telescope. While it appears that NGC 105 is colliding with another galaxy, this is simply the consequence of the two objects in the night sky aligning by chance. The elongated […]

Rogue planets are elusive cosmic objects that have masses comparable to those of the planets in our Solar System but do not orbit a star, instead roaming freely on their own. Not many were known until now, but a team of astronomers, using data from several European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes and other facilities, have […]

Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family. By analysing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn in the Cotswolds-Severn region, the […]

Beijing: Chinese researchers have developed a new catalyst that can convert carbon dioxide and water into pure formic acid, a raw material in the organic chemical industry, the Guangming Daily reported. The researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and the Dalian Institute […]

One of the largest planets ever detected orbits at an enormous distance around two stars with a combined mass up to 10 times greater than our sun, an extreme celestial family that shatters assumptions about the type of places where planets can exist. The planet, located about 325 light years from Earth, is a gas […]

It almost is not fair. Carnivorous dinosaurs were armed with menacing teeth inside muscular jaws, wielded dangerous claws on their hands and feet, and boasted keen vision and sense of smell. And, as new research confirms, some were pretty fast, too. Two trackways of Cretaceous Period fossilized footprints from about 120 million years ago discovered […]

Benjamin Taub Obviously, the aliens all built their houses on the far side of the Moon, beyond the gaze of our prying telescopes. What they didn’t bank on, however, was a little visit from China’s Yutu-2 rover, which has spotted an intriguing cube-shaped object on the lunar surface, described as a “mystery house” by the […]

As part of a team of collaborators from Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins University, NAU PhD candidate Ari Koeppel recently discovered that water was once present in a region of Mars called Arabia Terra. Arabia Terra is in the northern latitudes of Mars. Named in 1879 by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, this ancient land […]

Seven Earth-sized planets orbit the star TRAPPIST-1 in near-perfect harmony, and U.S. and European researchers have used that harmony to determine how much physical abuse the planets could have withstood in their infancy. “After rocky planets form, things bash into them,” said astrophysicist Sean Raymond of the University of Bordeaux in France. “It’s called bombardment, […]

Mars explorers searching for signs of ancient life could be fooled by fossil-like specimens created by chemical processes, research suggests. Rocks on Mars may contain numerous types of non-biological deposits that look similar to the kinds of fossils likely to be found if the planet ever supported life, a study says. Telling these false fossils […]

After decades of uncertainty, researchers have confirmed the existence of lunar carbon dioxide cold traps that could potentially contain solid carbon dioxide. The discovery will likely have a major influence in shaping future lunar missions and could impact the feasibility of a sustained robot or human presence on the moon. In the permanently shadowed regions […]

The dwarf planet Vesta is helping scientists better understand the earliest era in the formation of our solar system. Two recent papers involving scientists from the University of California, Davis, use data from meteorites derived from Vesta to resolve the “missing mantle problem” and push back our knowledge of the solar system to just a […]

Amazon’s owner, Jeff Bezos recently lost a case against NASA losing a billion-dollar contract, that was rewarded to Musk’s Space X. Musk instantly posted a meme targeting Bezos, once again taking a dig at his billionaire rival. The contract to build lunar lander for the US Artemis Program has been ruled against Blue Origin by […]

Although thousands of planets have been discovered in the Milky Way, most reside less than a few thousand light years from Earth. Yet our Galaxy is more than 100,000 light years across, making it difficult to investigate the Galactic distribution of planets. But now, a research team has found a way to overcome this hurdle. […]

Sending human travelers to Mars would require scientists and engineers to overcome a range of technological and safety obstacles. One of them is the grave risk posed by particle radiation from the sun, distant stars and galaxies. Answering two key questions would go a long way toward overcoming that hurdle: Would particle radiation pose too […]

A compositional link between planets and their respective host star has long been assumed in astronomy. For the first time now, a team of scientists, with the participation of researchers of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) from the University of Bern and the University of Zürich, deliver empirical evidence to support the […]

One of the youngest planets ever found around a distant infant star has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by University of Hawaii at Manoa faculty, students, and alumni. Thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars, but what sets this one apart is that it is newly-formed and can be […]

The planet Venus can be seen as the Earth’s evil twin. At first sight, it is of comparable mass and size as our home planet, similarly consists mostly of rocky material, holds some water and has an atmosphere. Yet, a closer look reveals striking differences between them: Venus’ thick CO2 atmosphere, extreme surface temperature and […]

Astronomers have discovered unusual signals coming from the direction of the Milky Way’s centre. The radio waves fit no currently understood pattern of variable radio source and could suggest a new class of stellar object. “The strangest property of this new signal is that it is has a very high polarisation. This means its light […]

The ability to detect and react to the smell of a potential threat is a precondition of our and other mammals’ survival. Using a novel technique, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have been able to study what happens in the brain when the central nervous system judges a smell to represent danger. The study, […]

A lunar probe launched by the Chinese space agency recently brought back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 40 years. Now an international team of scientists — including an expert from Washington University in St. Louis — has determined the age of these moon rocks at close […]

The dwarf planet Vesta is helping scientists better understand the earliest era in the formation of our solar system. Two recent papers involving scientists from the University of California, Davis, use data from meteorites derived from Vesta to resolve the “missing mantle problem” and push back our knowledge of the solar system to just a […]

The experience of a fruit fly dying from cancer may seem worlds away from that of a human with a life-threatening tumor, yet University of California, Berkeley, researchers are finding commonalities between the two that could lead to ways to prolong the lives of cancer patients. Fruit fly research is already pointing to a new […]

Metal-rich near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are rare, but their presence provides the intriguing possibility that iron, nickel and cobalt could someday be mined for use on Earth or in Space. New research, published in the Planetary Science Journal, investigated two metal-rich asteroids in our own cosmic backyard to learn more about their origins, compositions and […]

In a distant star system — a mere 1,300 light years away from Earth — UNLV researchers and colleagues may have identified the first known planet to orbit three stars. Unlike our solar system, which consists of a solitary star, it is believed that half of all star systems, like GW Ori where astronomers observed […]