Individual space telescopes, like Hubble and JWST, revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe. What if we had an array of them, instead?
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With its first view of a protoplanetary disk around a newly forming star, the JWST reveals how alone individual stellar systems truly are.
The story of how Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were made isn’t a universal one. Some gas giants were built different.
No planet enters retrograde more frequently than Mercury, which does so 3-4 times each year. Here’s the scientific explanation for why.
We’ve only seen Uranus up close once: from Voyager 2, back in 1986. The next time we do it, its features will look entirely different.
In terms of the planets we’ve discovered, super-Earths are by far the most common. What does that mean for the Universe?
Gravitation, all on its own, can reveal what’s present in the cosmos like nothing else.
The nearby, bright star Fomalhaut had the first optically imaged planetary candidate. Using JWST’s eyes, astronomers found so much more.
The space telescope’s findings challenge the notion of a galaxy brimming with life.
The secret ingredient is violence, and it just might indicate that “moonmoons” aren’t as uncommon as most astronomers think.
The cosmic scales governing the Universe are almost unbelievably large. What if we shrunk the Sun down to be just a grain of sand?
As Uranus approaches its solstice, its polar caps, rings, and moons come into their best focus ever under JWST’s watchful eye. See it now!
We have long thought that Pluto was completely frozen solid, but the discovery of cryovolcanoes challenges that assumption.
If something exists, it is by definition natural.
“Superhabitable” planets might be real, but Earth is probably as good as it gets.
The classic picture of Jupiter’s great rocky core might be entirely wrong.
In the largest star-forming region close to Earth, JWST found hundreds of planetary-mass objects. How do these free-floating planets form?
Newton thought that gravitation would happen instantly, propagating at infinite speeds. Einstein showed otherwise; gravity isn’t instant.
In 1990, we only knew of the planets in our own Solar System. Today, the exoplanet count is more than 5000. Here’s what we’ve learned.
The giant impact theory suggests our Moon was formed from proto-Earth getting a Mars-sized strike. An exoplanet system shows it’s plausible.
Binary black holes eventually inspiral and merge. That’s why the OJ 287 system is destined for the most energetic event in history.
Like Mars today, Venus used to be a sci-fi superstar. Recent discoveries could re-ignite our interest in Earth’s “evil twin.”
Neptune holds records in our Solar System, but the Universe gets even faster. Here on Earth, extreme weather events can cause dramatic wind speed spikes. When hurricanes are at their most […]
Even the dictionary doesn’t get the definition right.
Red dwarf stars were supposed to be inhospitable. But TOI-700, now with at least two potentially habitable worlds, is quite the exception.
In 2006, Pluto was demoted in a very controversial decision. Unless you ignore nearly all of planetary science, it’ll never be one again.
Planets are either rocky, like Earth, or gas-rich, like Neptune, with no in-between. What are the different types of planets that exist in the Universe? If all you could see […]
Some microbes can withstand Earth’s most inhospitable corners, hinting that life may be able to survive similarly extreme conditions on other worlds.
Can two planets stably share the same orbit? Conventional wisdom says no, but a look at Saturn’s moons might tell a different story.