NASA's LRO spots Japan's SLIM moon lander

On Jan. 19, 2024, at 10:20 a.m. EST, the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed on the lunar surface. Five days later, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft ...

Study shows the Earth formed from dry, rocky building blocks

Billions of years ago, in the giant disk of dust, gas, and rocky material that orbited our young sun, larger and larger bodies coalesced to eventually give rise to the planets, moons, and asteroids we see today.

Scientists unveil a unified theory for rocky planet formation

A new theory for how rocky planets form could explain the origin of so-called "super-Earths"—a class of exoplanets a few times more massive than Earth that are the most abundant type of planet in the galaxy.

Capsule with asteroid samples arrives in Japan for research

Japanese space agency officials were delighted Tuesday by the return of a small capsule containing asteroid soil samples obtained by their Hayabusa2 spacecraft and were anxiously waiting to look inside after preparations ...

Liquifying a rocky exoplanet

Rocky exoplanets that are around Earth-size are comparatively small, which makes them incredibly difficult to detect and characterise using telescopes. What are the optimal conditions to find such small planets that linger ...

Planet-devouring star reveals possible limestone crumbs

A group of researchers using the W. M. Keck Observatory have discovered a planet-like body that may have been encrusted in limestone and is having its surface layers devoured by its deceased host star. In addition to extending ...

Scientists solve riddle of celestial archaeology

A decades old space mystery has been solved by an international team of astronomers led by Professor Martin Barstow of the University of Leicester and President-elect of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Hubble finds dead stars 'polluted' with planetary debris

(Phys.org) —The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found signs of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby star cluster. The white dwarf stars are being polluted ...

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