A new exoplanet, closest and lightest known yet, is discovered in Alpha Centauri system by a team using ESO’s (European Southern Observatory) HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) instrument. It is notable that same team had discovered the first
A recent study done by Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy, Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee, and Olivier Mousis, a planetary scientist at the IRAP suggests a surface of a nearby super-Earth planet is covered in graphite and diamond.
Have you ever wondered why you look up and see a dark sky at night? The Minute Physics have created another great video explaining why the sky is dark at night. Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in
Planetary astrophotographer Mike Phillips made amazing 8 second video of Jupiter. Mike filmed Jupiter through his home-made f/4.5 14″ Newtonian telescope for a consecutive 1.5 hours on September 12, 2012. He batched up groups of frames, stacked them together (to
In July 1965, Mariner 4 – NASA’s first spacecraft to fly by Mars – sent back its first images to Earth. Since then, dozens of spacecraft have been sent to explore the cold red planet. Consistently, the planet has raised far more questions than answers. In 1996,
NASA’s Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) – launching in 2017 – is a major step in the technological development of high data rate optical systems. This could move data up to 100X faster than conventional radio frequency transmission. Here is latest video
Many scientists think that long ago, Mars once had a denser atmosphere, cloudy skies that supported liquid water flowing over the surface. For some reason, most of the Martian atmosphere was lost to space long ago and the thin wispy atmosphere no longer allows water
All eyes are focused on Jupiter now. An asteroid or comet impacted Jupiter 36hrs ago, causing a flash of light. Caught on webcam by amateur astronomer George Hall in Dallas, Texas, the impact on Jupiter that occurred yesterday is currently the only video footage of…
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered first multi-planet solar system orbiting two stars named Kepler-47, which resembles the kind of solar system with two Sun(s) depicted in star wars. It is known as circumbinary planetary system and is 4900 light years away in the
A UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon known as “plate tectonics”, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet’s surface, also exists on Mars. An Yin, planetary geologist and a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences
