A new estimate: 15% of solar systems are like Earth’s
Carl Sagan wrote, “The universe is a pretty big space. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So, if it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space, right?” Perhaps Sagan would...
View ArticleBrown dwarfs in the neighborhood
For over a century human beings have seriously speculated about a journey to other stars. Just one problem, of course; all stars (even the Sun) are far, far away. Unless we can travel approaching the...
View ArticleGliese 710 to smash Solar System in 1.5 million years
Almost everything about an impact event – Earth hit by some form of space object – takes place at such long intervals, or the odds are so minimal that it’s almost embarrassing to describe. Still, it’s...
View ArticleIt’s big, it’s temperate; it’s a normal planet: CoRoT-9b
To-date a little more than 400 planets outside of our Solar System have been discovered. A new planet has just been added to the list, CoRoT-9b, and it’s special. It’s a big planet, a gas giant like...
View ArticleA spate of exoplanets
The search for planets outside the solar system that could (repeat, could) harbor life goes on at a faster pace. The big gun is the Kepler Space Telescope, which in part was designed to look for...
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Published results: LCROSS lunar impact reveals scientific treasure
The hypothesis: In the shadows of deep craters that pock the south pole of the Moon there might be ever-frozen water.The experiment: Guide the final stages of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing...
View ArticleMars water: What’s all the fuss?
Seventh in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light,...
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Orbiting Mercury: The message of Messenger
Messenger orbital trajectory…..Credit: NASAFor the first time in perhaps two billion years the planet Mercury has a satellite. This moonless planet, which is itself smaller than many moons in the...
View ArticleHARPS finds a batch of 50+ new exoplanets
Punch up the numbers, add more than fifty planets to the count of those that potentially could harbor life, bringing the total almost to 700. These new exoplanets were discovered by the HARPS (High...
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Outta Here: Voyager 1 exits our solar system
Voyager 1, distant ambassador….Credit: NASATake a brief moment to think about Voyager 1, the very first human-made thing to leave our Solar System. Voyager 1 is a probe launched by the American space...
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