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10 November 2008
Plutoid Eris is Changing… But We Don't Know Why
Eris, the largest dwarf planet beyond Neptune, is currently at its furthest point in its orbit from the Sun (an aphelion of nearly 100 AU). At this distance Eris doesn't receive very much sunlight and any heating of the Plutoid will be at a minimum. However, two recent observations of Eris have shown a rapid [...]
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18 August 2008
Ten Mysteries of the Solar System
We've all wondered at some point or another what mysteries our Solar System holds. After all, the eight planets (plus Pluto and all those other dwarf planets) orbit within a very small volume of the heliosphere (the volume of space dominated by the influence of the Sun), what's going on in the rest of the [...]
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09 July 2008
Sun-like Stars May Have Low Probability of Forming Planets
This protoplanetary disk in the Orion Nebula has a mass more than one hundredth that of the sun, the minimum needed to form a Jupiter-sized planet. Image credit: Bally et al 2000/Hubble Space Telescope & Eisner et al 2008/CARMA, SMA) The Orion Nebula shines brilliantly, as it is packed with over 1,000 young stars [...]
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06 June 2008
Planetary Potential from Protoplanetary Disks
How planets form is one of the major questions in astronomy. Only recently have we been able to study the disks of dust and gas surrounding other stars in an effort to understand the process of how planets coalesce and form from these "protoplanetary" materials. But this is a difficult task at best, [...]
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02 April 2008
Venus' Variable Evolution
For every backyard astronomer, we know 4.5 billion years ago, both Venus and Earth were formed with nearly the same radius, mass, density and chemical composition. Venus is like Earth's evil twin, but why is the climate on both worlds so widely varied? Scientists analysing the data from the orbiting European Venus Express [...]
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04 January 2008
Organic Molecules Found Outside our Solar System
Organic molecules are thought by scientists to be instrumental in kickstarting life as we know it on Earth. Within our Solar System they can be found in comets, and they cause the redness of the clouds of Saturn's moon Titan. New observations of a planet-forming disk around a star 220 light-years from Earth [...]
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22 November 2007
Meteorites Reveal Mars' Past: Molten Surface, Thick Atmosphere
If Mars ever had water flowing on its surface, as the many canyons and riverbed-like features on the Red Planet seem to indicate, it also would have needed a thicker atmosphere than what encircles that planet today. New research has revealed that Mars did indeed have a thick atmosphere for about 100 million years [...]
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03 October 2007
Earthlike Planet Forming Around a Distant Star
Astronomers believe the Earth formed out of a ring of gas and dust surrounding the Sun. Over the course of several million years, dust particles stuck together, and then collided with larger and larger chunks until all the material in the ring formed up into a single planet. The heavier elements separated from the lighter [...]
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