Tagged: solar system

This gas was formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang An extremely rare type of helium that was created soon after the Big Bang is leaking out of Earth’s metallic core, a new modeling study suggests. The vast majority of this gas in the...

‘Results … are generally consistent with other null searches for Planet 9.’ A theorized huge, ninth planet beyond the orbit of Neptune once again wasn’t found in a new survey of the solar system’s outer reaches. Astronomers scanned a large portion of the sky using...

As Solar Cycle 25, which just began, ramps up, we’re going to be hearing more often about solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Both are gigantic explosions of energy on the sun. Sometimes solar flares and CMEs happen at the same time; the strongest...

Did you see the solar eclipse yesterday morning (June 10, 2021)? A lucky few saw an annular solar eclipse across parts of Canada, while people in other areas of Canada, the northeastern U.S, Russia, Iceland and the U.K. witnessed the partial eclipse phase. An annular...

A giant comet from the outskirts of our solar system has been discovered in six years of data from the Dark Energy Survey. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is estimated to be about 1000 times more massive than a typical comet, making it arguably the largest comet discovered...

What are the brightest objects in our solar system that you can see in your sky? The sun is the very brightest, of course, but you might be surprised by some of the other objects that make the list. You can see the first seven...

Back in January 2018, astronomers detected a faint object in our solar system so far away from the sun that they nicknamed it Farfarout. After a couple of years of additional observations, the astronomers are now, as of February 10, 2021, ready to declare that...

Tightly spaced planets inside an alien solar system known as Kepler-80 boast a rare orbital configuration. The study was led by Mariah MacDonald as an undergraduate with Darin Ragozzine, an assistant professor of physics and space sciences, both at Florida Institute of Technology. The unusual...

In their search for life in solar systems near and far, researchers have often accepted the presence of oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere as the surest sign that life may be present there. A new Johns Hopkins study, however, recommends a reconsideration of that rule...

Astonishingly, not one but two interstellar asteroids have been detected entering our solar system since 2017. The first was given the Hawaiian name “Oumuamua, meaning “messenger from afar,” after its discovery by Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk. The second, 2I/Borisov, was named for its discoverer Gennadiy...