Tag Archives: exoplanets

Tides and Our Moon’s Origin

Scientists have been wondering how our moon formed, and why its orbit isn’t over Earth’s equator. It looks like our moon formed after something about the size of Mars hit Earth, roughly 4,500,000,000 years back. But the giant-impact hypothesis didn’t … Continue reading

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KIC 8462852 and Strange Stars

KIC 8462852, Tabby’s Star, has been in the news recently. Scientists are pretty sure that something very large orbits the star, but haven’t worked out what it is. A few scientists, looking at the data, say that it’s probably a … Continue reading

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Proxima Centauri b, Looking for Life

Looking for extraterrestrial life is still a science in search of a subject, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to argue that there couldn’t be critters out there. Today I’ll be talking about the search for life in the universe, a … Continue reading

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Studying Thousands of New Worlds

Scientists studied the atmospheres of two exoplanets, planets orbiting another star, earlier this year. Both planets are roughly Earth-sized, with atmospheres a bit like the Solar System’s terrestrial planets. Juno arrived at Jupiter last month, and will start its science … Continue reading

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