Astronomers have discovered the largest rocky planet yet, and its existence has profound implications for our understanding of the early universe and the potential for extraterrestrial life. Kepler-10c, which was spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, has a diameter of roughly 18,000 miles—more than twice that of Earth —prompting scientists to create a new class of planets, dubbed “mega-Earths.”The body’s […]
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Have we found Earth’s twin? For the first time, astronomers have identified a planet outside our solar system that is both Earth-size and orbits its star in the so-called Goldilocks zone, where temperatures may be “just right” for supporting liquid water—and, therefore, life. Researchers discovered the planet while reviewing data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which has spent the past […]
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We might have a ninth planet out there about 25 times farther out than Pluto from the sun. Some Astronomers have been searching for this planet for three years when it was first thought to be in existence. They believe that it has been hanging out in the outskirts of the solar system and have yet to find its actual […]
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A huge energy flare ripped through the heart of our galaxy about 3.5 million years ago. A blast so extremely powerful, it could be felt 200k light-years away and lasted more than 300k years. A study concluded by researchers in Australia and the U.S. found that the former belief that “our galaxy was an inactive galaxy” may in fact not […]
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Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, has blistering 800-degree temperatures at its equator—but its poles are full of ice. New data from NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, which began orbiting Mercury last year, has revealed that as much as a trillion tons of ice exists in shadowy polar craters, where temperatures can drop to minus 370 degrees. Much of the ice […]
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All the gold on Earth was forged in the collisions of massively dense stars billions of years ago. Astronomers have come to this conclusion after observing and analyzing the afterglow of a crash between two neutron stars in a galaxy 3.9 billion light-years away that yielded a hoard of gold likely equal to the mass of 20 Earths. “At today’s […]
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The Milky Way and its closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, are on course for “ a head-on collision,” says astronomer Roeland van der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute. But no need for precautions because the crash won’t happen for another 4 billion years. Researchers have long known that Andromeda, currently some 2.5 million light-years away, is moving toward […]
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Stars are not born alone. Rather, they emerge from clouds of gas and dust in groups of up to 10,000, then slowly scatter through space. For the first time, astronomers have identified a star that came from the same solar nursery as our sun, some 4.5 billion years ago. This stellar relative—located 110 light-years away in the constellation Hercules—is hotter […]
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Scientists have made an astronomical declaration, stating that there is likely ten times the amount of galaxies in our universe than originally expected. The previous amount was believed to be about 200 billion, but now it is believed to be much more. According to astronomers from the University of Nottingham, we are just beginning to learn exactly how vast our […]
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Mapping the infant universe is no easy task. New data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite is giving astronomers their most complete look yet at the very earliest moments of the universe. Planck, which measures microwave radiation, has created a heat map of the temperatures present in the universe a mere 370,000 years after the Big Bang. The data […]
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