News tagged with planet formation

Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Subaru's sharp eye confirms signs of unseen planets in the dust ring of HR 4796 A

(PhysOrg.com) -- The SEEDS (Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru Telescope/HiCIAO) project, a five-year international collaboration launched in 2009 and led by Motohide Tamura of NAOJ ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

The water reservoir in a young planetary system

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers once thought that the process of star formation was more-or-less controlled by the simple coalescence of material by gravity, leading eventually to a new star. But they have come ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 15, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Cosmic voyager has a layover in St. Louis

Last January two amateur meteorite hunters dropped by Randy Korotev's office at Washington University in St. Louis to show him their latest purchase, a 17-kilogram pallasite meteorite found in 2006 near Conception ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Spiral arms hint at the presence of planets

A new image of the disk of gas and dust around a sun-like star has spiral-arm-like structures. These features may provide clues to the presence of embedded but as-yet-unseen planets.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 2

Stardust discovered in far-off planetary systems

Searching for extra-solar planets -- which are planets outside of our solar system -- is very popular these days. About 700 planets are known at the moment, a number that is continuously rising due to refined ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 29, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

Rocky planets could have been born as gas giants

When NASA announced the discovery of over 1,200 new potential planets spotted by the Kepler Space Telescope, almost a quarter of them were thought to be Super-Earths. Now, new research suggests that these ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 16, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 38

Want to make planets? Better hurry

Currently, astronomers have two competing models for planetary formation. In one, the planets form in a single, monolithic collapse. In the second, the core forms first and then slowly accretes gas and dust. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 24, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 18

Flipping hot Jupiters: Why some planets orbit the wrong way

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the last few years astronomers have observed that in some extrasolar systems the star is spinning one way and the planet, a "hot Jupiter," is orbiting the star in the opposite direction. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 11, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 23 | with audio podcast

Frozen comet had a watery past, scientists find

For the first time, scientists have found convincing evidence for the presence of liquid water in a comet, shattering the current paradigm that comets never get warm enough to melt the ice that makes up the ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 05, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Assumptions about exo-oceans

Some estimates indicate that 25% of Sun-like stars have Earth-like planets. A new study now shows that these planets are almost certain to have oceans if they are located in the right temperature zone around ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 04, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (13) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Oxygen isotope analysis tells of the wandering life of a dust grain 4.5 billion years ago

Scientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation, providing the first ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 03, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (6) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Birth of a baby planet

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Sydney astronomer, Professor Peter Tuthill, is one of an international team of astronomers who have announced a major step forward in the quest to find planets in orbit around ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 02, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Missing chromium is clue to planet formation

Early in the formation of the Earth, some forms of the element chromium separated and disappeared deep into the planet's core, a new study by UC Davis geologists shows.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 24, 2011 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Planet Formation in Action? (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope an international team of astronomers has been able to study the short-lived disc of material around a young star that is in the early stages of making ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 24, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 7 | with audio podcast