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    Scientists find an explanation for odd-ball, water-rich exoplanets: They make their own water

    October 31, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Scientists find an explanation for oddball, water-rich exoplanets: they make their own water
    Laser-heated diamond-anvil cell experiments on silicate melts in a hydrogen medium. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09630-7

    As more and more exoplanets are discovered throughout the galaxy, scientists find some that defy explanation—at least for awhile. A new study, published in Nature, describes a process that might explain why a large portion of exoplanets have water on their surface, even when it doesn’t make sense.

    Water where it shouldn’t be
    A particular category of exoplanets that are between the size of Earth and Neptune, referred to as “sub-Neptunes,” generally have a rocky core, which is surrounded by an envelope of either hydrogen or water...

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    Researchers present list of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Ingredients

    December 2, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Overview of the chemical elements that make up Rosetta’s comet. Right: Average mass distribution of organic and mineral substances in Rosetta’s comet.

    1. Left: The surface of Rosetta’s comet. As the comet approaches the Sun, frozen gases evaporate from below the surface, dragging tiny particles of dust along with them. Right: These dust grains can be captured and examined using the COSIMA instrument. Targets such as this one measuring only a few centimeters act as dust collectors. They retain dust particles of up to 100 microns in size. 2. Left: Overview of the chemical elements that make up Rosetta’s comet. Right: Average mass distribution of organic and mineral substances in Rosetta’s comet.

    The dust that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko emits into space consists to about one half of organic molecules. The dust belongs to the most pristine and carbon-rich material known in our solar system and has hardly changed since its birth...

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    Rotation of Cloudy ‘Super-Jupiter’ directly measured

    February 19, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is an illustration of a planet that is four times the mass of Jupiter and orbits 5 billion miles from a brown-dwarf companion (the bright red object seen in the background). The rotation rate of this "super-Jupiter" has been measured by studying subtle variations in the infrared light the hot planet radiates through a variegated, cloudy atmosphere. The planet completes one rotation every 10 hours -- about the same rate as Jupiter. Because the planet is young, it is still contracting under gravity and radiating heat. The atmosphere is so hot that it rains molten glass and, at lower altitudes, molten iron. Because the planet is only 170 light-years away, many of the bright background stars that can be seen from Earth can be seen from the planet's location in our galaxy, including Sirius, Fomalhaut, and Alpha Centauri. Our sun is a faint star in the background, located midway between Procyon and Altair. Credit: Artwork: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); Science: NASA, ESA, Y. Zhou and D. Apai (U. Arizona)

    This is an illustration of a planet that is four times the mass of Jupiter and orbits 5 billion miles from a brown-dwarf companion (the bright red object seen in the background). The rotation rate of this “super-Jupiter” has been measured by studying subtle variations in the infrared light the hot planet radiates through a variegated, cloudy atmosphere. The planet completes one rotation every 10 hours — about the same rate as Jupiter. Because the planet is young, it is still contracting under gravity and radiating heat. The atmosphere is so hot that it rains molten glass and, at lower altitudes, molten iron...

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    The Formation of Carbon-Rich Molecules in Space

    January 12, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Formation of Carbon-Rich Molecules in Space

    A computer simulation of the formation of complex organic molecules in space. The spherical molecular structures forming on the graphene surface at 3000 K are similar in shape to fullerenes. The red atoms originated in the gas phase and the white atoms are from the surface. Credit: Marshall and Sadeghpour

    The space between stars is not empty, but contains an abundance of diffuse material, about 5-10% of the total mass of our galaxy (excluding dark matter). Most of the material is gas, predominantly hydrogen, but with a small and important component in complex carbon-bearing molecules including ethene, benzene, propynal, methanol and other alcohols, cyanides, simple amino acids, and even larger molecules (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and buckyballs) with 50 or more carbon atoms...

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