Items tagged with planet
Stargazers are in for a rare planetary treat from now until the end of February. If you look up into the night sky tonight (under the right conditions, of course), six planets—Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus, and Venus—will be visible. Even better is that on February 28, Mercury will join the rather special...
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Be sure to look up this month, as night skies in August will be filled with cosmic wonders, ranging from meteor showers, the Lagoon Nebula, and Jupiter and Mars converging. So, pack a blanket, grab a few friends, and enjoy the celestial shows occurring throughout the month.
About a week after August’s new moon, the...
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Nearly 40 years after NASA’s Voyager 2 probed Uranus, three planetary scientists believe they may have cleared up a perplexing problem surrounding the methane rich planet and its weaker-than-anticipated radiation belts. A new study by the scientists suggests it may be explained by the unique magnetic field structure...
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Stargazers will be able to view six of the Solar System’s planets form a straight line as they take their place in a parade of planets. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus will all take part in the parade, with Venus being the only one absent.
While the recent aurora that stretched across much of...
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NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) made its first ever startling discovery of a free-floating rogue planet, and NASA says it is hunting for more. While TESS will continue to be on the lookout for more rogue planets, the space agency is hopeful that its upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will...
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The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express snapped an image of Mars that will send a chill up the spine of those with arachnophobia. But don’t get too freaked out. The swarm of creepy crawlers is not what one might expect at first glance.
While the image may give the illusion of thousands of spiders scurrying...
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A new study from a survey of 91 pairs of twin stars named C3PO sheds new light on the so-called “three-body problem” that has befuddled scientists for centuries. At least 8%, or 1 in 12, of twin stars in the study show chemical anomalies that indicate one star had gobbled up planetary material that once orbited it...
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It appears Saturn was not happy that gas giant Jupiter overtook it as the planet with the most moons earlier this year with 95 known natural satellites. Thanks to an international team of astronomers, however, the ringed planet has taken back its crown with 62 new moons being discovered.
Saturn is adorned with...
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Astronomers have documented an aging star engulfing a planet for the first time ever. The new study is a possible foreshadowing of what will eventually happen to our own planet as the Sun goes through the same end-of-life-transition.
As our own Sun gets closer to its red giant phase in approximately 6 billion...
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Scientists have found direct evidence of active volcanism on Venus, Earth's twin, for the first time ever. The 30-plus-year-old evidence will be followed up on with NASA's upcoming VERITAS mission.
Surprisingly, the newly found evidence was found in archival radar images from the 1990s, during NASA's Magellan...
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Skywatchers will be able to view all the planets in our Solar System on the same night. Those wanting to get an early sneak peek can join a live broadcast by The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 later today.
December has been chock full of celestial events for skywatchers to enjoy. Those who love to admire the Moon...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a gorgeous image of Neptune, its rings, and seven of the planet's moons. One of Neptune's moons shines so brightly, that it could be mistaken for a star.
Neptune was first discovered in 1846 and has enamored astronomers since. The frigid planet is located 30...
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NASA's InSight lander has captured the first audio of a meteoroid impacting another planet, and it sounds quite different than one might imagine. The lander's seismometer has been able to pick up vibrations from four separate impacts in the past two years.
InSight first landed on the Red Planet in 2018. Since its...
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Uranus is capable of making it rain diamonds, and that's no joke. Along with Neptune, the two planets, referred to as ice giants, have temperatures and pressures that are so excessive it causes intense physical reactions.
In order for a diamond to form, it requires a combination of events to occur, according to a new research paper released
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A recent research paper suggests that dwarf planet Ceres may have originated at the icy edges of the solar system. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt and is vastly different than its rocky neighbors.
Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet that exists in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and...
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Thanks to a new deep neural network called ExoMiner, NASA has added a whopping 301 exoplanets that human eyes had missed. These exoplanets have been added to the 4,569 other planets that have been validated by NASA.
NASA scientists, astronomers and researchers are always on the lookout for new exoplanets that may...
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The search for another planet in our solar system has came up empty for astronomers searching the skies. Astrophysicists have explored the possibility for some time and many firmly believe one does exist. Now 38-year-old data may back up what they have suspected all along.
The exploration of space has taken us far...
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NASA is always on the lookout for signs of life beyond Earth and new planets it could exist on. Astronomers at NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory may have discovered a new planet the size of Saturn in another galaxy (far, far away).
NASA has recently been crunching new data coming in from its probe Juno currently...
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