Category Astronomy/Space

The prospects for life on a given planet depend not only on where it forms but also how, according to Rice University scientists.

Planets like Earth that orbit within a solar system’s Goldilocks zone, with conditions supporting liquid water and a rich atmosphere, are more likely to harbor life...

Discovery comes from reanalysis of two-decade-old video. The famed northern and southern lights have been studied for millennia, but they still hold secrets. Physicists describe a new phenomenon they call ‘diffuse auroral erasers,’ in which patches of the background glow are blotted out, then suddenly intensify and reappear.

For millennia, humans in the high latitudes have been enthralled by auroras — the northern and southern lights. Yet even after all that time, it appears the ethereal, dancing ribbons of light above Earth still hold some secrets.

In a new study, physicists led by the University of Iowa report a new feature to Earth’s atmospheric light show...

New observations and simulations show that jets of high-energy particles emitted from the central massive black hole in the brightest galaxy in galaxy clusters can be used to map the structure of invisible inter-cluster magnetic fields...

New Johns Hopkins University simulations offer an intriguing look into Saturn’s interior, suggesting that a thick layer of helium rain influences the planet’s magnetic field.

The models, published this week in AGU Advances, also indicate that Saturn’s interior may feature higher temperatures at the equatorial region, with lower temperatures at the high latitudes at the top of the helium rain layer.

It is notoriously difficult to study the interior structures of large gaseous planets, and the findings advance the effort to map Saturn’s hidden regions.

“By st...