May 2018
PLATO the habitable zone explorer
... looking for We now know of between 2,900 and 5,300 exoplanets (depending on whether you include ‘validated’ planets and/or ‘candidate’ planets in your count or not), and the rate of discovery shows no sign of slowing down. It is the variety of those...
June 2018
We live on a planet!
... systems that best mimic the natural systems of our Spaceship Earth All of the things that our planet does for us to sustain life, we have to create in our spaceship to ensure our survival in space. In addition to overcoming the...
20 March 2017
Scientists challenge how planets are defined
... At present, the IAU’s definition of what makes a planet a planet states that a body must orbit the Sun, it must... IAU's astronomical definition. Would having a 102 ‘new’ planets stimulate interest in Solar System exploration? Runyon, who is finishing...
14 December 2017
AI detects eighth planet orbiting distant sun
...version of our Solar System. You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer,”...up to detect the miniscule change in brightness captured when a planet passes in front of its host star, but small, rocky ...
17 June 2019
Filling in the gaps of Jupiter-like planet formation
... astronomical units, or AU) where large gas giants like to congregate. "As you go out from the central star, giant planets become more frequent,” said Eugene Chiang, a UC Berkeley professor of astronomy and member of the collaboration's theory group...
November 2017
Roving the red planet
...greatly aided by the extensive orbital remote sensing of the planet provided by a series of spacecraft dating back to the ... agent of mineralogic change in the early history of the planet. Upon reaching the Columbia Hills, the Spirit rover discovered...
