Category Astronomy/Space

For 10 years, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has scanned the sky for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the universe’s most luminous explosions. A new catalog of the highest-energy blasts provides scientists with fresh insights into how they work.

“Each burst is in some way unique,” said...

Few sun-like stars have these massive planets, making our sun unusual. A survey of 300 stars in search of exoplanets finds that massive, Jupiter-like gas giants are found just about where Jupiter is in our own solar system. As planets form in the swirling gas and dust around young stars, there seems to be a sweet spot where most of the large, Jupiter-like gas giants congregate, centered around the orbit where Jupiter sits today in our own solar system. The location of this sweet spot is between 3 and 10 times the distance Earth sits from our sun (3-10 astronomical units, or AU). Jupiter is 5.2 AU from our sun.

That’s just one of the conclusions of an unprecedented analysis of 300 stars...

Research team re-calculates distribution of volatile elements. Geologists gain new insights regarding the Earth’s composition by analyzing meteorites. They conclude that the building blocks that brought volatile elements to Earth have a chemical composition similar to that of primitive carbonaceous chondrites.

The study focuses on the distribution and origin of so-called volatile elements such as zinc, lead and sulphur, which have low boiling temperatures in space...

It’s one of the greatest and longest-running mysteries surrounding, quite literally, our sun – why is its outer atmosphere hotter than its fiery surface? University of Michigan researchers believe they have the answer, and hope to prove it with help from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

In roughly two years, the probe will be the first human-made craft to enter the zone surrounding the sun where heating looks fundamentally different that what has previously been seen in space...