NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Do we live in an unusual star system? Astronomers have been trying to figure out if the Solar System is unique compared to other stars and their orbiting planets, and they just took a major step towards answering the longstanding cosmic mystery.
A newly discovered exoplanet, with its surface temperature estimated to be remarkably temperate, is suddenly one of the most intriguing objects in our immediate celestial neighborhood. This rocky Venus-sized world transits a red dwarf star, offering astronomers the rare opportunity to study whether such planets can…
Scientists have spotted a rocky exoplanet with a possible atmosphere, which they believe may be burbling out from a magma ocean on the distant world.
By now, I’m assuming that we’ve made our way through all eight episodes of the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s The 3 Body Problem (and by we, I mean sci-fi nerds). The series is packed with science—much of it way over the top—but it grounds itself in quantum mechanics and astrophysics.
Speculation about extraterrestrials is not all that new. There was a vibrant debate in 17th-century Europe about the existence of life on other planets.
WASP-76b is a strange world. Located several hundred light-years away, the Jupiter-like planet is tidally locked to its star, has scorching temperatures, and rains molten iron. Recent observations of the hot gas giant reveal it may even have a rainbow-like optical phenomenon that’s only been observed on Earth and…
Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth, but a supercomputer just modeled stuff that’s even harder. Called a ‘super-diamond,’ the theoretical material could exist beyond our planet—and maybe, one day, be created here on Earth.
The Webb Space Telescope has spotted something weird: a brown dwarf with what appear to be aurorae, what we Earthlings sometimes call the Northern Lights. What makes the observation particularly surprising is that the brown dwarf doesn’t have a nearby star that could cause such an aurora.