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Tag: planet

NASA released this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto on 9/25/15. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) on 7/14/15. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

Study: Pluto Should Be a Planet!

September 15, 2018

In 2006, members of the International Astronomical Union or the IAU, an organization recognized as the authority for naming celestial bodies, voted on a set of characteristics that define what makes a planet a planet. One of those traits required a planet had to “clear” its orbit; meaning it had to provide the greatest gravitational force in […]

Various groupings of Jovian moons with the newly discovered ones shown in bold. (Roberto Molar-Candanosa, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science)

Astronomers Discover A Dozen New Jovian Moons

July 21, 2018

As a team of astronomers was looking beyond Pluto for the mysterious Planet 9. So far they haven’t located the giant hypothetical planet, but they did wind up discovering a dozen new moons orbiting Jupiter. “Jupiter just happened to be in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant Solar System […]

Artist rendering of the exoplanet WASP-107b transiting its highly active K-type main sequence star. (ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser)

First Detection of Helium in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

May 4, 2018

Scientists say for the first several hundred thousand years or so after the Big Bang, there were virtually only two elements in the universe, hydrogen, and helium. A hydrogen atom is made of only one proton and one electron, and a helium atom has two each of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Hydrogen and then helium are […]

This is an enhanced-color image of Mecury taken during NASA’s MESSENGER mission in 2015. (NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab / Carnegie Inst. Washington)

Newly Discovered Exoplanet Resembles Planet Mercury

March 30, 2018

A newly found exoplanet called K2-229b is about 20% larger and 2.5 times more massive than Earth. But the international team of astronomers, who recently discovered it, say it’s more like a super-charged version of our solar-system’s innermost planet, Mercury. They describe the planet as hot, metallic, made of iron and nickel, circles an orange K-dwarf […]

Simulated image of the HD 106906 stellar debris disk, showing a ring of rocky planet-forming material. (Erika Nesvold/Carnegie Institution for Science)

Insight Into Planetary Evolution – Dark Matter Rare in Old Galaxies

March 17, 2017

Scientists Gain New Insight into Planetary Evolution Scientists recently gained new insight into the evolution of planet formation by creating and studying a model of a fairly young solar system 300 light years from Earth. The nearly 13 million year-old planetary system circles a star known as HD 106906. The system features a surrounding planet […]

Is the Universe Connected By a Cosmic Web?

January 26, 2017

Some people think that the universe is just a hodge-podge of various celestial objects, such as planets, stars and galaxies. But over the years, scientists have found more evidence that the universe may be anything but random, and is actually more organized and interconnected—like an enormous spider web. Our place in the web Let’s start […]

Biggest Wave Spotted; Walking Heel-to-Toe; Newborn Exoplanets

December 15, 2016

New Record for Biggest Wave Measured by Buoy The UN’s World Meteorological Society says the biggest wave ever to be measured by a buoy was identified at 0600 universal time on February 4, 2013. The colossal 19-meter swell was spotted in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and the UK. The previous highest wave recorded […]

Did our Sun Snatch Planet 9 from Another Solar System?

June 3, 2016

Is it possible that the new-found theoretical Planet 9 is actually an exoplanet, a planet from another solar system? According to astronomers at Sweden’s Lund University, it’s “highly likely” that Planet 9 was actually “snatched” from another solar system by our young sun some 4.5 billion years ago, or within 100 million years after its formation. […]

Scientists Find Traces of Early Earth in Volcanic Rock

May 13, 2016

According to most scientists, Earth was formed between 4.5 and 4.6 billion years ago after gravity forced gas and dust left over from the creation of the Sun accreted into an object called a planetesimal. Over time, the planetesimal continued to gather more and more material and eventually became a planet. Scientists say heat produced […]

Artist concept of dwarf planet Makemake and its moon MK2 (NASA/ESA)

Dwarf Planet Moon Discovered; Supplements Boost Antidepressants; Kepler Back in Business

April 27, 2016

Hubble Spots Moon Circling Distant Dwarf Planet Out in the far reaches of our solar system lies the Kuiper Belt.  This region of space is occupied by icy objects left over from the creation of the solar system. Several dwarf planets, such as Pluto, also occupy the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers studying images gathered by the […]

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