Category Astronomy/Space

A new study by Manuel Barrientos and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma reveals that between 0.6% and 2.5% of white dwarfs in our solar neighborhood undergo dramatic cooling delays that could extend habitable zones for billions of additional years. The secret lies in an element known as neon-22, which, after carbon and oxygen, is the most abundant element inside white dwarfs.

When white dwarfs contain at least 2.5% neon-22 by mass, they undergo a process called “distillation” as their cores crystallize...

WISPIT2b, a gas giant forming around a young Sun-like star, has been directly imaged for the first time inside a spectacular multiringed disk. Still glowing and actively accreting gas, the planet offers a unique opportunity to study planetary birth and evolution.

An international team of astronomers, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, has made the unexpected discovery of a new planet.

Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.

The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The ground-breaking...

In the 17th century, German astronomer Johannes Kepler figured out the laws of motion that made it possible to accurately predict where our solar system’s planets would appear in the sky as they orbit the sun. But it wasn’t until decades later, when Isaac Newton formulated the universal laws of gravitation, that the underlying principles were understood.

Although they were inspired by Kepler’s laws, they went much further, and made it possible to apply the same formulas to everything from the trajectory of a cannon ball to the way the moon’s pull controls the tides on Earth—or how to launch a satellite from Earth to the surface of the moon or planets.

Today’s sophisticated artificial intelligence systems have gotten very good at making the kind...

The idea of building settlements on Mars is a popular goal of billionaires, space agencies and interplanetary enthusiasts.

But construction demands materials, and we can’t ship it all from Earth: it cost US$243 million just to send NASA’s one ton Perseverance Rover to the Red Planet.

Unless we’re building a settlement for ants, we’ll need much, much more stuff. So how do we get it there?

CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow and Swinburne alum Dr. Deddy Nababan has been pondering this question for years. His answer lies in the Martian dirt, known as regolith.

“Sending metals to Mars from Earth might be feasible, but it’s not economical...