How stable are planetary systems? Will Earth and its seven siblings always continue in their steady celestial paths, or might we one day be randomly ejected from our cosmic home?
Astronomy
Mar 23, 2024
0
84
It takes two to tango, but in the case of brown dwarfs that were once paired as binary systems, that relationship doesn't last for very long, according to a recent survey from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomy
Mar 21, 2024
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15
An international team of astronomers reports the detection of a rare eclipsing Be/X-ray binary system as part of the Swift Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) Survey (S-CUBED). The finding was detailed in a research paper published ...
The total solar eclipse isn't the only reason to keep your eyes to the sky this year. For the first time in 80 years, a star system 3,000 light years away will be visible to the naked eye thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime nova ...
Astronomy
Mar 19, 2024
1
1182
The exoplanet census now stands at 5,599 confirmed discoveries in 4,163 star systems, with another 10,157 candidates awaiting confirmation. So far, the vast majority of these have been detected using indirect methods, including ...
Astronomy
Mar 19, 2024
0
68
When we look out to the stars, it is typically not a yearning for the distant depths of outer space that drives us. When we are looking out there, we are truly looking back at ourselves. We try to understand our place in ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 16, 2024
1
34
In 2008, astronomers with the SuperWASP survey spotted WASP-12b as it transited in front of its star. At the time, it was part of a new class of exoplanets ("hot Jupiters") discovered a little more than a decade before. However, ...
Planetary Sciences
Mar 11, 2024
0
53
How do planetary systems such as the solar system form? To find out, CNRS scientists taking part in an international research team studied a stellar nursery, the Orion Nebula, using the James Webb Space Telescope. By observing ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 29, 2024
0
120
Star Wars protagonist Luke Skywalker's childhood might have been slightly less harsh if he'd grown up on a more temperate Tatooine—like the ones identified in a new study.
Astronomy
Feb 22, 2024
0
19
A new planet starts its life in a rotating circle of gas and dust, a cradle known as a protostellar disk. My colleagues and I have used computer simulations to show that newborn gas planets in these disks are likely to have ...
Astronomy
Feb 17, 2024
1
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