Astronomers ponder proto solar system vanishing act
Displaying all of the characteristics of a solar system in the making, a massive cloud of dust and rocky debris…
Andromeda-Milky Way collision visualized
After nearly a century of speculation about the future destiny of Andromeda and our own Milky Way galaxy, scientists at…
Nomad planets seeding life throughout the universe?
According to new calculations, planets adrift in space without a “home” solar system are abundant in the universe and scientists…
Venus transit to help identify possible neo-Earths
Hoping to eventually identify Earth-like planets in other solar systems, astronomers plan to point the Hubble telescope at the Moon’s…
Hundreds of rogue stars found outside galaxy
Vanderbilt University astronomers say they have identified more than 600 stars that have been violently flung out of the Milky…
SETI needs self-replicating robot explorers, argues prof
Autonomous, self-replicating robots are the best way to explore the universe, locate extraterrestrial life and perhaps even clean up space…
New blow to dark matter theory
A study of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for the existence of dark…
Earth to Moon on a cup of fuel
A new low-cost ionic motor could drastically reduce the cost of space exploration, with its developers saying it could propel…
Milky Way’s black hole in asteroid feeding frenzy
The X-ray flares that are observed on a daily basis from the giant black hole at the center of the…
Milky Way has “billions” of habitable planets
Working with data from telescopes located around the world, an international team of astronomers have shown that planets around stars…
Earth-sized exoplanet identified
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has achieved a new milestone in its ongoing hunt for exoplanets that might resemble Earth and…
Solar flares “sandblasting” the Moon
Solar storms remove a surprisingly large amount of material from the lunar surface, computer simulations have revealed, leading NASA scientists…
Springtime on Earth II
The Kepler space telescope has identified a large, rocky exoplanet with a surface temperature of about 22 degrees Celsius (72…
Running the numbers on alien life
A multi-institute team of scientists have proposed a new method of assessing the likelihood of life on alien worlds (exoplanets)…
New Europa fractured surface theory holds water – and maybe life
Taking observations of Earth’s ice sheets and floating ice shelves and applying them to Europa, scientists say Jupiter’s moon may…
Lost: one giant planet
Computer simulations of the early solar system suggest the possibility that our system had more than four giant planets initially…
SETI needs to see the light, say astrophysicists
SETI’s (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) quest to find radio signals transmitted by extraterrestrial civilizations has so far failed to locate…
US astronomers give nod to complex organics in space
The controversial notion that complex organic molecules could be relatively common in interstellar space has garnered support from US and…
Stars manufacturing complex organic matter?
An analysis of the spectral emissions from distant stars suggests that compounds of unexpected complexity – some resembling coal and…
Energy levels of Crab Pulsar defy explanation
An international team of scientists has detected pulsed gamma rays from the neutron star at the heart of the Crab…
First images from ALMA radio telescope
The world’s most complex ground-based astronomy observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile, has captured its first…
First exoplanet with twin suns discovered
The discovery of exoplanet Kepler-16b is the first confirmed, unambiguous example of a circumbinary planet – a planet orbiting not…
Largest water mass in universe discovered
A reservoir of water that is 100,000 times the mass of the sun has been detected by an international team…
Space travel safer with shiraz
Intriguing new research in the FASEB Journalsuggests that the “healthy” ingredient in red wine, resveratrol, may prevent the negative effects…
New class of supernova discovered
They’re bright, blue-and a bit strange, say Caltech astronomers who are puzzling over the lack of hydrogen in the spectrums…
Strong evidence for liquid water in comet
The idea that comets are “dirty snowballs” frozen in time looks set for revision now that scientists have found evidence…
Cassini tracks equatorial methane rainstorms on Titan
Showers on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have brought methane rains to its equatorial deserts, as revealed in images captured by…
Discoverer of alien bacteria says life probably exists “everywhere”
NASA scientist Richard B. Hoover has sparked controversy with claims that he has identified bacterial microfossils in several meteorites. If…
Hubble snaps most distant galaxy yet
Astronomers have pushed the Hubble Space Telescope to it limits by finding what they believe to be the most distant…
More evidence for asteroids creating life on Earth
All life on Earth uses “left-handed” amino acids to build proteins and NASA has now found that a greater number…