Earth’s plate tectonics, the movement of massive chunks of its crust, might be the reason why life thrives on our planet. While the exact timing of its emergence remains a mystery, scientists are piecing together clues from ancient rocks and exploring how plate tectonics could have played a crucial role in the evolution of life and may even be a crucial factor in the search for alien life.
Scientists using NASA’s TESS spacecraft have discovered a record-breaking triple-star system so tightly bound that it could fit between the Sun and Mercury. This system, with its super-tight orbit, challenges our understanding of star system formation and offers exciting prospects for future observations with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
While planets are generally spherical due to their gravitational pull, some planets can deviate from perfect spheres due to centrifugal force and tidal forces from their host stars. This article explores how these forces can create elongated and squished planets, even potentially leading to tidally locked planets. The article also touches on the hypothetical existence of toroidal planets, shaped like a donut.
Imagine a telescope so powerful, it can see the surface details of exoplanets hundreds of light-years away. This isn’t science fiction; it’s the potential of harnessing the sun’s gravity as a natural lens. Learn about the incredible power of the solar gravitational lens and the ambitious plans to build a fleet of spacecraft to reach its focal point and unlock the secrets of the universe.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has mapped nearby stars in 3D, helping astronomers identify promising candidates for exoplanet searches. The map reveals the X-ray radiation levels around these stars, crucial for determining the potential habitability of orbiting planets.
A Slovakian artist, Martin Vargic, has crafted two intricate infographics depicting over 1,600 exoplanets, highlighting their diversity and providing a visual representation of the vastness of our galaxy. The infographics, ‘Icy and Rocky Worlds’ and ‘The Exoplanet Zoo,’ showcase planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, arranged by temperature and size. These stunning illustrations offer a glimpse into the extraordinary variety of exoplanets discovered beyond our solar system.
A team of scientists has directly imaged eight dim objects, including brown dwarfs, orbiting bright stars using the Gaia and GRAVITY instruments. This discovery marks the first time a brown dwarf has been directly observed so close to its host star. The research highlights the powerful synergy between Gaia’s ability to identify potential companion objects and GRAVITY’s ability to directly image them.
Scientists have discovered that an exoplanet previously thought to resemble Spock’s homeworld in Star Trek was likely an illusion caused by a jittery star. The supposed planet, orbiting a star known as Keid, was detected using the radial velocity method, which measures the subtle shifts in starlight caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet. However, new high-precision measurements using the NEID instrument at Kitt Peak National Observatory revealed that the wobble was actually caused by pulses and jitters within Keid itself. The discovery highlights the challenges of detecting exoplanets using the radial velocity method and emphasizes the need for careful interpretation of data.
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed a surprisingly low concentration of methane in the atmosphere of WASP-107 b, a bloated exoplanet orbiting a star 200 light-years away. This discovery suggests that the planet’s extreme puffiness may be due to factors other than a massive reservoir of gas or a small, rocky core. Instead, intense heat generated by the planet’s highly elliptical orbit and tidal forces from its host star may be causing its atmosphere to expand.
Astronomers have identified a rare exoplanet, Gliese 12 b, located just 40 light-years away and classified as an “exo-Venus”. It is between the size of Earth and Venus and orbits its red dwarf star every 12.8 Earth days. The planet’s temperate nature, similar to Earth’s, makes it an ideal target for studying planetary atmosphere development. Researchers aim to determine if Gliese 12 b has an atmosphere and if it resembles Earth’s or Venus’s dense atmosphere, which will shed light on the divergent evolution of these two planets.
