Artist’s conception of Planet Nine. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) The Solar System has eight planets. In 2006, astronomers reclassified PlutoPluto is a dwarf planet in…
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Evidence from the analysis of lunar samples suggest that although the Earth and moon formed from a giant impact, they mostly retained their primordial abundances…
Warps Drive Disruptions in Planet Formation Through Gravitational Instability in Young Solar Systems
The impact of a warp as it wipes out the spiral structure of a protoplanetary disc. Credit: University of Warwick A new study from the…
To understand how life emerged, scientists investigate the chemistry of carbon and water. In the case of water, they track the various forms, or isotopes,…
International research team investigated the isotopic composition of rocky planets in the inner Solar System. Earth and MarsMars is the second smallest planet in our…
Credit: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley). Joseph DePasquale (STScI) Stunning Yearly Observations Reveal Changes to Gas Giants’ Atmospheres In Greek…
An MIT study suggests that a mysterious gap existed within the solar system’s protoplanetary disk around 4.567 billion years ago, and likely shaped the composition…
Illustration of planet formation around a Sun-like star, with the building blocks of the planets – rocks and iron molecules – in the foreground. Credit:…
An MIT study suggests that a mysterious gap existed within the solar system’s protoplanetary disk around 4.567 billion years ago, and likely shaped the composition…
NASA’s Psyche mission to a distant metal asteroid will carry a revolutionary Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Set to launch next year,…
Wolf-Rayet star. Credit: Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA, ESA – Processing: Judy Schmidt Nearby star-forming region yields clues to the formation of our solar system. The…
The Carina Nebula, where newborn stars are irradiated by intense ultraviolet light from nearby massive stars – possibly similar to the environment which birthed our…
The detection of the heavy metals iron (Fe) and nickel (Ni) in the fuzzy atmosphere of a comet are illustrated in this image, which features…
LLNL researchers have found that the current locations of many planetary bodies in the solar system are not where they originally formed. Credit: NASA As…
The unstable atom 92Nb, which has long since disappeared, provides information about the beginnings of our solar system. Credit: Makiko K. Haba Using the extinct…
The inner terrestrial protoplanets accrete early, inherit a substantial amount of radioactive 26Al, and hence melt, form iron cores, and degas their primordial volatile abundances…
NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, will help us better understand the nature of interplanetary space, which is dominated by a constant flow…
Illustration of solar wind flowing over asteroids in the early solar system. The magnetic field of the solar wind (white line/arrows) magnetizes the asteroid (red…
Artist’s conception of the dust and gas surrounding a new planetary system. Credit: NASA A long time ago — roughly 4.5 billion years — our…