What happened to the missing pieces of the solar system?
The early solar system was an especially violent place.
The terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) likely formed by suffering countless collisions between planetesimals.
But...
NASA’s Perseverance rover collects puzzle pieces of Mars’ history
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover successfully collected its first pair of rock samples, and scientists already are gaining new insights into the region.
After collecting its...
Satellite in sun’s backyard unravels the origins of interplanetary dust
What do shooting stars and astronaut safety have in common?
Both stem from the sub-microscopic rock fragments found throughout the solar system, sometimes called interplanetary...
Our Milky Way galaxy is not homogeneous, shows study
Astronomers from the UNIGE have observed the composition of the gases in our galaxy and have shown that, contrary to the models established until...
Many sunlike stars gobbled up some of their planets
New research shows that other sunlike stars in our galaxy aren’t so kind to their planets.
Up to a quarter of them may consume planets...
Astronomers nail down the origins of rare loner dwarf galaxies
The results provide a blueprint for finding such systems in the universe’s quieter, emptier regions.
By definition, dwarf galaxies are small and dim, with just...
Scientists reveal how the very faint dwarf galaxies are born
As their name suggests, ultradiffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf galaxies whose stars are spread out over a vast region, resulting in extremely low...
Human mission to mars should last a maximum of 4 years
At one time, the idea of sending humans to Mars either seemed like a distant prospect or something out of science fiction.
But with multiple...
Ocean worlds with hydrogen-rich atmospheres could be the perfect spots for life
The search for planets beyond our Solar System (extrasolar planets) has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade.
A total of 4,514 exoplanets...
NASA’s planetary radar observes 1,000th near-earth asteroid since 1968
On Aug. 14, 2021, a small near-Earth asteroid (NEA) designated 2021 PJ1 passed our planet at a distance of over 1 million miles (about...