09 October 2019
This year's Physics Nobel Prize winners
... being discovered, with an incredible wealth of sizes, forms and orbits. They challenge our preconceived ideas about planetary systems and are forcing scientists to revise their theories of the physical processes behind the origins of planets. With...
June 2015
The real Interstellar: space travel theories from Tsiolkovsky to wormholes
... our huge galaxy, we Earthlings don’t need to send spacecraft to every star. We need only to populate about ten planetary systems in our stellar neighbourhood, in the radius of about 50 light years. The next steps in exploration will be undertaken...
June 2018
Cosmic communications and the anthropology of outer space
...of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life FP = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems NE = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life. FL = The fraction of suitable planets on which life...
18 August 2016
Space Rebel Niku Baffles Astronomers
... astronomers, who used the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 Survey (Pan-STARRS 1). Niku is small by space standards...the Sun backwards. Typically, when a planetary system is formed, angular momentum causes everything to spin in ...
04 December 2019
Giant planet found orbiting a white dwarf for the first time
... is being stripped away. Five billion years from now, our Solar System will look a lot different than it does right now. It will... up a new window into the final fate of planetary systems says Gänsicke. “Until recently, very few astronomers paused...
31 January 2020
A final farewell to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
... discoveries. In 2014, it detected evidence of asteroid collisions in a newly formed planetary system, providing evidence that such smash-ups might be common in early solar systems and crucial to the formation of some planets. In 2016, Spitzer worked...
