Looking back on our planet’s early history offers a new (and less crazy) meaning for the idea of a “flat Earth.”
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Planets can be Earth-like or Neptune-like, but only rarely are in between. This hot, Saturn-like planet hints at a solution to this puzzle.
Between the least massive star and most massive planet lies the mysterious brown dwarf: a class of objects that are neither star nor planet.
Known as orphaned planets, rogue planets, or planets without parent stars, these “outliers” might be the most common planet of all.
Many planets will eventually be devoured by their parent star. For the first time, we caught a star in the act, eating its innermost planet!
The outer planets’ clouds hide the weirdness within.
Esperanto was intended to be an easy-to-learn second language that enabled you to speak with anyone on the planet.
“Superhabitable” planets might be real, but Earth is probably as good as it gets.
The TRAPPIST-1 system is a treasure trove of possibilities and questions. Observations by JWST have just begun.
Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets — very few of which resemble Earth.
For now, our Solar System’s eight planets are all safe, and relatively stable. Billions of years from now, everything will be different.
The Earth that exists today wasn’t formed simultaneously with the Sun and the other planets. In some ways, we’re quite a latecomer.
Explore how the study of exoplanets is transforming our understanding of ocean formation.
Finding a tiny planet around bright stars dozens or hundreds of light-years from Earth is extremely difficult.
As planets with too many volatiles and too little mass orbit their parent stars, their atmospheres photoevaporate, spelling doom for some.
An interview with Lisa Kaltenegger, the founding director of the Carl Sagan Institute, about the modern quest to answer an age-old question: “Are we alone in the cosmos?”
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where’s everyone else?
There are plenty of life-friendly stellar systems in the Universe today. But at some point in the far future, life’s final extinction will occur.
Can two planets stably share the same orbit? Conventional wisdom says no, but a look at Saturn’s moons might tell a different story.
In the largest star-forming region close to Earth, JWST found hundreds of planetary-mass objects. How do these free-floating planets form?
“I hope we take a mindset where we are willing to look for weird life in weird places.”
The acceptance of our cosmic loneliness and the rarity of our planet is a wakeup call.
Life became a possibility in the Universe as soon as the raw ingredients were present. But living, inhabited worlds required a bit more.
No matter how you define the end, including the demise of humanity, all life, or even the planet itself, our ultimate destruction awaits.
In the early stages of our Solar System, there were three life-friendly planets: Venus, Earth, and Mars. Only Earth thrived. Here’s why.
Each of our three nearest stars might have an Earth-like planet in orbit around it. Here’s what we’ll learn when we finally observe it.
Scientists may have detected the somewhat smelly chemical dimethyl sulfide on a planet 120 light-years from Earth.
Despite billions of years of life on Earth, humans first arose only ~300,000 years ago. It took all that time to make our arrival possible.
Despite the vast number of planets in the Universe, Earth’s specific evolutionary history guarantees that its life forms — including humans — are utterly unique.
There are so many problems, all across planet Earth, that harm and threaten humanity. Why invest in researching the Universe?