planetary science
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Retired NASA Telescope Reveals Clues to the Elusive ‘Size Gap’ in Exoplanets
Exoplanets pushing their atmospheres away may explain a gap in exoplanet masses, according to a team of researchers that recently studied data from NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope. The activity could explain an absence of exoplanets with masses between 1.5 to 2 times the size of Earth, according to findings published this week in The…
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Quasi-Planets Called JuMBOs Are Bopping Around in Space
A team of astronomers have detected over 500 planet-like objects in the inner Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster that they believe could shake up the very definition of a planet. The 4-light-year-wide Trapezium Cluster sits at the heart of the Orion Nebula, or Messier 42, about 1,400 light-years from Earth. The cluster is filled…
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New Image Reveals Dusty Clumps That Could Be the Source of Gas Giants
Researchers think they’ve gotten a glimpse at how gas giants like Jupiter form, thanks to a remarkable image of a distant star system. At the heart of the system is V960 Mon, a young star about 5,000 light-years away, in the constellation Monoceros. The star brightened to about 20 times its normal levels in 2014,…
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‘Mind Blowing’ Trojan Planet Suspected of Sharing the Same Orbit as Its Sibling
A group of radio telescopes in the Chilean desert was aimed at a young star system 400 light years away when it detected something unusual: a cloud of debris chasing a planet along the same orbit. The debris could be a planet in the midst of being born or the remains of one that already…