Category Astronomy/Space

New radio astronomy observations of a planetary system in the process of forming show that once the first planets form close to the central star, these planets can help shepherd the material to form new planets farther out. In this way each planet helps to form the next, like a line of falling dominos each triggering the next in turn.

To date over 5000 planetary systems have been identified. More than 1000 of those systems have been confirmed to host multiple planets. Planets form in clouds of gas and dust known as protoplanetary disks around young stars. But the formation process of multi-planet systems, like our own Solar System, is still poorly understood.

The best example object to study multi-planet system formation is a young star known as PDS 70, located 367 light years a...

Currently, 5,788 exoplanets have been confirmed in 4,326 star systems, while thousands more candidates await confirmation. So far, the vast majority of these planets have been gas giants (3,826) or Super-Earths (1,735), while only 210 have been “Earth-like”—meaning rocky planets similar in size and mass to Earth.

What’s more, the majority of these planets have been discovered orbiting within M-type (red dwarf) star systems, while only a few have been found orbiting sun-like stars. Nevertheless, no Earth-like planets orbiting within a sun-like star’s habitable zone (HZ) have been discovered so far.

This is largely due to the limitations of existing observatories, which have been unable to resolve Earth-size...

For the first time, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has detected and “weighed” a galaxy that not only existed about 600 million years after the Big Bang, but also has a mass that is similar to what our Milky Way galaxy’s mass might have been at the same stage of development.

Other galaxies Webb has detected at this period in the history of the universe are significantly more massive. Nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, this galaxy is gleaming with star clusters—10 in all—each of which researchers examined in great detail. Their work is published in Nature.

“I didn’t think it would be possible to resolve a galaxy that existed so early in the universe into so many distinct components, let alone find that its mass is similar to our own galaxy’s when it was in the process...

Dust storms on Mars could one day pose dangers to human astronauts, damaging equipment and burying solar panels. New research gets closer to predicting when extreme weather might erupt on the Red Planet.

Today’s weather report on Mars: Windy with a chance of catastrophic dust storms blotting out the sky.

In a new study, planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have begun to unravel the factors that kick off major dust storms on Mars — weather events that sometimes engulf the entire planet in swirling grit. The team discovered that relatively warm and sunny days may help to trigger them.

Heshani Pieris, lead author of the study, said the findings are a first step toward forecasting extreme weather on M...