Asteroid Bennu—the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, led by the University of Arizona—is a mixture of materials from throughout, and even beyond, our solar system. Over the past few billion years, its ...
Astronomy
Aug 22, 2025
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The Three-Body Problem isn't just the name of a viral Netflix series or a Hugo Award-winning sci-fi book. It also represents a real problem in astrodynamics—and one that can cause headaches for mission planners in terms ...
Space Exploration
Aug 19, 2025
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8
Water is essential for life on Earth. So, the liquid must be a requirement for life in other worlds. For decades, scientists' definition of habitability on other planets has rested on this assumption.
Astrobiology
Aug 11, 2025
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37
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object from outside our solar system to visit our neighborhood. This interstellar interloper is putting on quite a show as it approaches ...
Astronomy
Aug 11, 2025
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25
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara, The University of Texas at Austin, Yale University and National Taiwan Normal University have found that a fair number of sun-like stars emerge with their rotational axis tilted with respect ...
Astronomy
Aug 6, 2025
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91
Astronomers have observed an explosion in space that is pushing back against and influencing the baby star which triggered the explosion in the first place. If explosions like this one are common around young stars, then ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2025
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27
New research from the University of St Andrews has found that giant free floating planets have the potential to form their own miniature planetary systems without the need for a star.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 4, 2025
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Since the discovery of planetary nebulae in the late 1700s, astronomers have learned that these expanding shells of glowing gas expelled by low-intermediate mass stars late in their lives can come in all shapes and sizes. ...
Astronomy
Jul 30, 2025
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47
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of astronomers led by Abubakar Fadul from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has discovered complex organic molecules—including the first ...
Astrobiology
Jul 24, 2025
5
134
Magnetic fields play an important—if sometimes underappreciated—part in planetary systems. Without a strong magnetic field, planets can end up as a barren wasteland like Mars, or they could indirectly affect massive storms, ...
Astronomy
Jul 21, 2025
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