Nearby Planetary System Mimics our Solar System A group of scientists using NASA’s airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy or SOFIA recently completed a study that confirmed their previous findings of a young and nearby planetary system. The researchers found that the system surrounding the star Epsilon Eridani, which is about 10.5 light years away […]
Solar System Mimics Ours; The Big Empty; Closest Human Relative?
Posted May 3rd, 2017 at 5:33 pm (UTC-4)
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New Horizons Journey; Wrong Way Asteroid; Ring Around Mars?
Posted April 4th, 2017 at 3:45 pm (UTC-4)
New Horizons Halfway to Next Flyby Destination NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided scientists an amazing once in a lifetime look at the distant dwarf planet Pluto as it flew by it in July 2015. Along with spectacular images of Pluto the spacecraft also sent back those of Pluto’s five moons including high definition shots of […]
Is the Universe Connected By a Cosmic Web?
Posted January 26th, 2017 at 4:02 pm (UTC-4)
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 […]
Ants Goof Off Too; Milky Way Steals Stars; Astronomers Spot Exocomets
Posted January 16th, 2017 at 1:12 pm (UTC-4)
Ants Balance Work and Rest to Maintain Colony Ants have a reputation of being dedicated and hardworking creatures. But did you know that like humans, ants also seek to maintain a healthy balance of work and rest? While an ant colony appears to be filled with busy workers, according to new research, there are also […]
Is Planet 9 Causing Our Solar System to Wobble?
Posted October 20th, 2016 at 4:19 pm (UTC-4)
A new study from researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggests that Planet 9, the huge and so far unseen planet said to be lurking in the far reaches of the solar system, might be causing our group of planets to wobble a little and giving an impression that the sun is slightly tilted. […]
Cosmic Cannon; Mars Dust Storm Forecast; Dione’s Subsurface Ocean
Posted October 7th, 2016 at 4:20 pm (UTC-4)
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Astronomers Find a Cosmic Cannon Astronomers have spotted super-hot blobs of plasma blasting into space like cannonballs near a dying red giant star, some 1,200 light years away. Using the Hubble Space Telescope to make their discovery, the scientists found that the balls of hot gas are flying so fast a trip from the Earth […]
NASA Will Have Cassini Working Hard Right Up to Fiery Finish
Posted September 16th, 2016 at 5:00 pm (UTC-4)
As the saying goes all good things must come to an end and the same will go for the Cassini mission to Saturn as it begins its final year of operation. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has big plans for the orbiter as it makes its year-long swan song. Dubbed the Grand Finale, the space agency […]
Where are Ceres Large Craters?
Posted July 27th, 2016 at 12:39 pm (UTC-4)
After NASA’s Dawn spacecraft had passed by the asteroid Vesta, on its way to rendezvous with Ceres, mission scientists noticed that its surface was banged up with a lot of very large craters. Its biggest impact crater is Rheasilvia, which measures 505 km in diameter. They expected that Ceres would also be seriously pitted with giant impact basins too. […]
One Third of the World’s Population Unable to See Milky Way
Posted June 13th, 2016 at 4:00 pm (UTC-4)
Among my fondest memories of being a kid back in the 1960’s was taking a week or so of summer vacation to visit relatives at my grandfather’s farm in Herman, PA (about 65 km northeast of Pittsburgh). During my stay I would spend evenings lying on the freshly cut grass of my grandpa’s back yard, just looking up into […]
Did our Sun Snatch Planet 9 from Another Solar System?
Posted June 3rd, 2016 at 4:00 pm (UTC-4)
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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. […]