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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Mars’ Surface Hardened Quickly, Boosting Odds of Life: Study

    June 27, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This image montage taken by NASA's Curiosity rover shows the surface of planet Mars, which researchers believe hardened only 20 million years after the birth of the Sun, much earlier than first thought

    This image montage taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover shows the surface of planet Mars, which researchers believe hardened only 20 million years after the birth of the Sun, much earlier than first thought

    The crust that encases rocky planets and makes possible the emergence of life took shape on Mars earlier than thought and at least 100 million years sooner than on Earth, researchers said Wednesday. Analysing grains of the mineral zircon extracted from a Martian meteorite known as Black Beauty, they determined that the Red Planet’s outer layer hardened 4.547 billion years ago, only 20 million years after the birth of the Sun.

    “Mars’s primary crust formation—which is the end product of planet formation—happened much faster than previously thought,” said Martin Bizzarro, a scientist at Denmark...

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    Planet Formation Starts Before Star Reaches Maturity

    June 27, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    MC1A is a still developing star in the constellation Taurus. Red are areas with many dust particles. Green and blue are two types of carbon monoxide. The absence of green / blue carbon monoxide in the inner part indicates that dust particles in the young protoplanetary disk have grown from less than a thousandth of a millimeter to a millimeter. Credit: Jørgensen/Harsono/ESASky/ESAC [CC-BY-SA 3.0]

    MC1A is a still developing star in the constellation Taurus. Red are areas with many dust particles. Green and blue are two types of carbon monoxide. The absence of green / blue carbon monoxide in the inner part indicates that dust particles in the young protoplanetary disk have grown from less than a thousandth of a millimeter to a millimeter. Credit: Jørgensen/Harsono/ESASky/ESAC [CC-BY-SA 3.0]

    A European team of astronomers has discovered that dust particles around a star already coagulate before the star is fully grown. Dust particle growth is the first step in the formation of planets. The researchers from the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark publish their findings in Nature Astronomy.

    In recent years, astronomers have discovered numerous planetary systems around other stars...

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    Scientists developing Guidebook for Finding Life beyond Earth

    June 26, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Biology/Biotechnology

    Summary of gaseous, surface, and temporal biosignatures.

    Summary of gaseous, surface, and temporal biosignatures.

    Some of the leading experts in the field, including a UC Riverside team of researchers, have written a major series of review papers on the past, present, and future of the search for life on other planets. Published in Astrobiology, the papers represent two years of work by the Nexus for Exoplanet Systems Science (NExSS), a NASA-coordinated research network dedicated to the study of planetary habitability, and by NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.

    Scientists have identified more than 3,500 exoplanets and many more will be discovered in the coming decades. Some of these are rocky, Earth-sized planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars, i.e. it’s neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water – and possibly life – to exist...

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    A Galactic Test will Clarify the Existence of Dark Matter

    June 26, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This picture shows the distribution of dark matter (above) and stars (below). Credit: © E. Garaldi, C. Porciani, E. Romano-Díaz/University of Bonn for the ZOMG Kollaboration

    This picture shows the distribution of dark matter (above) and stars (below). Credit: © E. Garaldi, C. Porciani, E. Romano-Díaz/University of Bonn for the ZOMG Kollaboration

    A new study found a way to determine whether the mysterious ‘star putty’ really exists. Researchers at the University of Bonn and the University of California at Irvine used sophisticated computer simulations to devise a test that could answer a burning question in astrophysics: is there really dark matter? Or does Newton’s gravitational law need to be modified? The new study, now published in the Physical Review Letters, shows that the answer is hidden in the motion of the stars within small satellite galaxies swirling around the Milky Way.

    Using one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, the scientists have si...

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