Titan, Europa, Io and Phobos are just a few members of our solar system’s pantheon of moons. Are there are other moons out there, orbiting planets beyond our sun?
NASA-funded researchers have spotted the first signs of an “exomoon,” and though they say it’s impossible to confirm its presence, the finding is a tantalizing first step toward locating others. The … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers say that magnetic storms in the gas orbiting young stars may explain a mystery that has persisted since before 2006.
Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to study developing stars have had a hard time figuring out why the stars give off more infrared light than expected. The planet-forming disks that circle the young stars are heated by starlight … Read the rest of this article
More than three-quarters of the planet candidates discovered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have sizes ranging from that of Earth to that of Neptune, which is nearly four times as big as Earth. Such planets dominate the galactic census but are not represented in our own solar system. Astronomers don’t know how they form or if they are made of rock, … Read the rest of this article
Weather forecasters on exoplanet GJ 1214b would have an easy job. Today’s forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: overcast. Extended outlook: more clouds.
Two teams of scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope report they have characterized the atmospheres of a pair of planets with masses intermediate between gas giants, like Jupiter, and smaller, rockier planets, like Earth. A survey by NASA’s Kepler space … Read the rest of this article
Using the powerful eye of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, two teams of scientists have found faint signatures of water in the atmospheres of five distant planets.
The presence of atmospheric water was reported previously on a few exoplanets orbiting stars beyond our solar system, but this is the first study to conclusively measure and compare the profiles and intensities of … Read the rest of this article
Planets rich in carbon, including so-called diamond planets, may lack oceans, according to NASA-funded theoretical research.
Our sun is a carbon-poor star, and as result, our planet Earth is made up largely of silicates, not carbon. Stars with much more carbon than the sun, on the other hand, are predicted to make planets chock full of carbon, and perhaps even … Read the rest of this article
A long-standing puzzle in the study of exoplanets is the formation of hot Jupiters – gas giant planets that snuggly orbit their host star. To explain their short orbital periods, theory suggests that hot Jupiters form in long orbits and then quiescently migrate through the protoplanetary disk, the flat ring of dust and debris that circles a new star and … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found the building blocks of solid planets that are capable of having substantial amounts of water. This rocky debris, currently orbiting a white dwarf star called GD 61, is considered a relic of a planetary system that survived the burnout of its parent star. The finding suggests that the star system — located … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system, a sizzling, Jupiter-like world known as Kepler-7b.
The planet is marked by high clouds in the west and clear skies in the east. Previous studies from Spitzer have resulted in temperature maps of planets orbiting other stars, … Read the rest of this article
When the Space Age began, astronomers knew of exactly zero planets outside the solar system. What a difference 50 years makes.
Modern, ground-based telescopes and NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have now confirmed more than 850 exoplanets, while thousands more await confirmation. The pace of discovery suggests “there are at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy,” says John Johnson of Caltech, … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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