Category Astronomy/Space

This is an artist’s illustration of a potentially habitable exomoon orbiting a giant planet in a distant solar system. Credit: NASA GSFC: Jay Friedlander and Britt Griswold

Researchers have identified 121 giant planets that may have habitable moons. Their work will guide the design of future telescopes that can detect these potential moons and look for tell-tale signs of life, called biosignatures, in their atmospheres. Since the 2009 launch of NASA’s Kepler telescope, scientists have identified thousands of planets outside our solar system, which are called exoplanets. A primary goal of the Kepler mission is to identify planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars, meaning it’s neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water – and potentially life – to exist.

Terrestrial (rocky) p...

Artist’s conception of Tidal Disruption Event (TDE) in Arp 299. Powerful gravity of supermassive black hole shreds passing star, pulling material into disk rotating around the black hole, and launching jet of particles outward. Artist’s conception in pullout — background is Hubble Space Telescope image of Arp 299, a pair of colliding galaxies. Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA, STScI

Star is shredded – Radio telescopes show aftermath. For the first time, astronomers have directly imaged the formation and expansion of a fast-moving jet of material ejected when the powerful gravity of a supermassive black hole ripped apart a star that wandered too close to the cosmic monster.

The scientists tracked the event with radio and infrared telescopes, including the National Science Foundat...

Photograph of lunar meteorite NWA 2727. Credit: Photo by Masahiro Kayama, Tohoku University

A team of Japanese scientists led by Masahiro Kayama of Tohoku University’s Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, has discovered a mineral known as moganite in a lunar meteorite found in a hot desert in northwest Africa. This is significant because moganite is a mineral that requires water to form, reinforcing the belief that water exists on the Moon.

“Moganite is a crystal of silicon dioxide and is similar to quartz. It forms on Earth as a precipitate when alkaline water including SiO2 is evaporated under high pressure conditions,” says Kayama. “The existence of moganite strongly implies that there is water activity on the Moon...

Last year, the Dawn spacecraft spied organic material near Ernutet crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, largest denizen of the asteroid belt. A new analysis suggests those organics could be more plentiful than originally thought. Credit: NASA / Hannah Kaplan

New technique could find some of the youngest planets in our galaxy. Two independent teams of astronomers have uncovered convincing evidence that three young planets are in orbit around an infant star known as HD 163296. Using a new planet-finding strategy, the astronomers identified 3 discrete disturbances in a young star’s gas-filled disk: the strongest evidence yet that newly formed planets are in orbit there.

Over the past several years, ALMA has transformed our understanding of protoplanetary disks – the gas- and dust-filled planet f...