For the first time, scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have witnessed a massive object with the makeup of a comet being ripped apart and scattered in the atmosphere of a white dwarf, the burned-out remains of a compact star.
The prospect of discovering alien life on any one — or several — of the Trappist-1 planets has captivated the imaginations of the people of Earth since NASA broke the news of the red dwarf star’s treasure trove of Earth-sized worlds, not to mention the fact that three — and later four — of the seven planets were located within the star’s habitable zone. And now, a study has emerged presenting the probability with which alien life might have prospered within the Trappist-1 planetary system through panspermia (that is, moving from world to world via collision and or ejecta transference).
Earth’s radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped regions of charged particles encircling our planet, were discovered more than 50 years ago, but their behavior is still not completely understood.
The dynamic space environment that surrounds Earth – the space our astronauts and spacecraft travel through – can be rattled by huge solar eruptions from the sun, which spew giant clouds of magnetic energy and plasma, a hot gas of electrically charged particles, out into space. The magnetic field of these solar eruptions are difficult to predict and can interact with Earth’s magnetic fields, causing space weather effects.
The earliest supermassive black holes may have been big to start with. If so, it would help explain the recent detection of such beasts within a billion years of the big bang.
A new paper uncovers a number of coincidences suggesting that recently discovered radio bursts are consistent with advanced civilizations using light sails for transportation.
Over the past decade, the international Cassini mission has revealed intense activity at the southern pole of Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, with warm fractures venting water-rich jets that hint at an underground sea. A new study, based on microwave observations of this region, shows that the moon is warmer than expected just a few metres below its icy surface. This suggests that heat is produced over a broad area in this polar region and transported under the crust, and that Enceladus’ reservoir of liquid water might be lurking only a few kilometres beneath.
Shock experiments show how mineral found in Martian meteorites may provide clues to ancient abundance of water
Astronomers have long known that Pan, one of Saturn’s innermost moons, has an odd look.
Most distant object ever observed by ALMA
