Category Astronomy/Space

Geologists propose Theory about a Famous Asteroid

Asteroid Vesta orbiting in the outer space as it passes through Mars. (Getty Images 3d render)

The troughs on Vesta have long been a topic of scientific speculation. The asteroid Vesta is the second largest asteroid in our solar system. With a diameter of about 330 miles, it orbits the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

Asteroids have long played a part in building popular fascination with space. “Marooned off Vesta” was the first story published by American writer Isaac Asimov, the third story he wrote, appearing in the March 1939 issue of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.

“When we think of asteroid belts, we probably picture Han Solo maneuvering the millennium falcon through a dense set of irregularly shaped gray rocks in space,” Christian Klimczak, associate...

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Dark Energy Camera Captures Detailed View of Striking Peculiar Galaxy

A spectacular portrait of the galaxy Centaurus A has been captured by astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. This galaxy’s peculiar appearance — cloaked in dark tendrils of dust — stems from a past interaction with another galaxy, and its size and proximity to Earth make it one of the best-studied giant galaxies in the night sky.

A spectacular portrait of the galaxy Centaurus A has been captured by astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile...

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Cold Planets Exist Throughout the Galaxy, even in the Galactic Bulge

Figure
An artist’s conception of cold planet distribution throughout the Milky Way. For comparison, the cyan cone is the Kepler transit survey field. The inset shows an artistic conception of a planetary system in the Galactic bulge.

Although thousands of planets have been discovered in the Milky Way, most reside less than a few thousand light years from Earth. Yet our galaxy is more than 100,000 light years across, making it difficult to investigate the galactic distribution of planets. But now, a research team has 5nd a way to overcome this hurdle.

In a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers led by Osaka University and NASA have used a combination of observations and modeling to determine how the planet-hosting probability varies with the distance from the ga...

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Unravelling the Mystery of Brown Dwarfs

Illustration-Nolan_Grieves-Scientists_Characterize_Five_Exotic_Astronomical_Objects-WebUnige.jpg
This artist’s illustration represents the five brown dwarfs discovered with the satellite TESS. These objects are all in close orbits of 5-27 days (at least 3 times closer than Mercury is to the sun) around their much larger host stars. Â© 2021 Creatives Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) – Thibaut Roger – UNIGE

Brown dwarfs are astronomical objects with masses between those of planets and stars. The question of where exactly the limits of their mass lie remains a matter of debate, especially since their constitution is very similar to that of low-mass stars...

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