Category Astronomy/Space

Geoscientists have found the largest extraterrestrial diamonds ever discovered – a few tenths of a millimeter in size nevertheless – inside meteorites. Together with an international team of researchers, they have now been able to prove that these diamonds formed in the early period of our solar system when minor planets collided together or with large asteroids. These new data disprove the theory that they originated deep inside planets – similar to diamonds formed on Earth – at least the size of Mercury.

It is estimated that over 10 million asteroids are circling the Earth in the asteroid belt...

Observations with the space telescope reveal details of the exoplanet WASP-189b – one of the most extreme planets known. Eight months after the space telescope CHEOPS started its journey into space, the first scientific publication using data from CHEOPS has been issued. CHEOPS is the first ESA mission dedicated to characterising known exoplanets. Exoplanets, i.e...

Lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan, composed of methane, ethane, and nitrogen rather than water, experience density driven stratification, forming layers similar to lakes on Earth. However, whereas lakes on Earth stratify in response to temperature, Titan’s lakes stratify solely due to the strange chemical interactions between its surface liquids and atmosphere, says a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Jordan Steckloff.

Stratification occurs when different parts of a lake have different densities, with the less dense layer floating atop the denser layer...

A top goal in cosmology is to precisely measure the total amount of matter in the universe, a daunting exercise for even the most mathematically proficient. A team led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has now done just that

Reporting in the Astrophysical Journal, the team determined that matter makes up 31% of the total amount of matter ...