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Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars
Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems. The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter.
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Previous Evidence of Water on Mars Now Identified as Grainflows
These new findings indicate that present-day Mars may not have a significant volume of liquid water. The water-restricted conditions that exist on Mars would make it difficult for Earth-like life to exist near the surface of the planet.
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Atmosphere, Not Lava Flows, for Exoplanet 55 Cancri e
The exoplanet 55 Cancri e is a cipher. Astronomers have gone back and forth on its nature — waterworld, diamond world, or volcanic hellscape? Part of the riddle has been whether the planet is bare rock or has an atmosphere — previous studies have shown ambiguous results. Now, new research from Isabel Angelo and Renyu Hu (both at JPL-Caltech) published in the November 16th Astrophysical Journal (full text here) seems to have settled the question: 55 Cancri e probably does have an atmosphere and a substantial one at that.
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Mars atmosphere well protected from the solar wind
Despite the absence of a global Earth-like magnetic dipole, the Martian atmosphere is well protected from the effects of the solar wind on ion escape from the planet. New research shows this using measurements from the Swedish particle instrument ASPERA-3 on the Mars Express spacecraft. The results have recently been presented in a doctoral thesis by Robin Ramstad, Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Umeå University, Sweden.
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Is Planet Nine Even Real?
A year and a half after it was proposed, astronomers are still debating whether the giant mystery planet actually exists. By Ramin Skibba.
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Mars' North Polar Ice Cap
A handout photo released by the European Space Agency on Feb. 2, 2017, shows a perspective view of the Mars north polar ice cap and its distinctive dark troughs forming a spiral-like pattern.
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Mars: Not as dry as it seems
When searching for life, scientists first look for an element key to sustaining it: fresh water. Although today’s Martian surface is barren, frozen and inhabitable, a trail of evidence points to a once warmer, wetter planet, where water flowed freely. The conundrum of what happened to this water is long standing and unsolved. However, new research published in Nature suggests that this water is now locked in the Martian rocks.
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NASA's $1 billion Jupiter probe has taken mind-bending new photos of the gas giant
NASA's Juno mission took incredible new photos during its tenth trip around Jupiter. The planet's clouds look like swirling hallucinations in the images.
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When Earth was a Snowball
The Earth hasn't always been the blue, hospitable planet it is today. On at least three occasions our planet was completely covered with ice. How did the Earth get into this state and, above all, how did it manage to get out of it?
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Kronos, the Star That Has Devoured 15 Planets
You can tell because it's chock-full of planetary metals.
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The Earth’s magnetic poles are overdue for a switch
The satellites that control our world could be rendered useless. By Chelsea Gohd.
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Mars on Earth: Simulation tests in remote desert of Oman
Mars on Earth: Simulation tests in remote desert of Oman - Two scientists in spacesuits, stark white against the auburn terrain of desolate plains and dunes, test a geo-radar built to map Mars by dragging the flat box across the rocky sand. When the geo-radar stops working, the two walk back to their all-terrain vehicles and radio colleagues at their nearby base camp for guidance. They can't turn to their mission command, far off in the Alps, because communications from there are delayed 10 minutes.
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Opportunity Rover Celebrates 5,000 Days on Mars
NASA's long-lived Mars rover Opportunity has just rolled past another big milestone — 5,000 days on the Red Planet.
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Life exists in the driest desert on Earth. It could exist on Mars, too.
Desert organisms flourish in rare rains and then go dormant when it's dry. Mars bacteria could do the same.
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Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars
This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Astronomers ...
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I Built a Stable Planetary System with 416 Planets in the Habitable Zone
This system is completely stable—I double-checked with computer simulations. But nature would have a tough time forming this system.…
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A 'planet parade' is coming Thursday morning, when Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto will line up — here's how to see it
It's a good month to be a stargazer or planet-watcher. If you're lucky enough to have clear skies tonight, peek outside before the sun comes up tomorrow. You may catch what many are calling a "planet parade." Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto will all be lined up in the pre-dawn sky the morning of March 8, with the moon appearing between Jupiter and Mars in those early hours. You'll need a telescope to see Pluto, but if you've got one, Accuweather says you should also be able to check out the four largest moons of Jupiter: Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. (You might even spot those moons with some nice binoculars.)
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Whoa, like, Jupiter is DEEP. Really, really deep.
Scientists studying Jupiter using data and observations from the Juno spacecraft just released four new papers on their results, and I honestly can't say what's cooler: The science, or the jaw-dropping images.
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15 new planets confirmed around cool dwarf stars
A research team led by Teruyuki Hirano of Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has validated 15 exoplanets orbiting red dwarf systems. One of the brightest red dwarfs, K2-155 that is around 200 light years away from Earth, has three transiting super-Earths. Of those three super-Earths, the outermost planet, K2-155d, with a radius 1.6 times that of Earth, could be within the host star's habitable zone.
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Is Earth's Magnetic Field Heading for a 'Big Flip'? Probably Not (Right Now)
What we might be seeing is an excursion rather than a reversal event. By Erik Klemetti.
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