Astronomers find a planet so hot it's streaming metals into space

This exoplanet is 10 times hotter than any world we measured and shaped like a football.

NASA/ESA/J. Olmsted/STScI
  • Astronomers study the exoplanet planet WASP-121b that's known as a "hot Jupiter."
  • The planet is so hot, metals like iron and magnesium stream off its surface.
  • The find is the latest accomplishment using the Hubble Space Telescope.
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A new theory explains Jupiter’s perplexing origin

A new computer model solves a pair of Jovian riddles.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)
  • Astronomers have wondered how a gas giant like Jupiter could sit in the middle of our solar system's planets.
  • Also unexplained has been the pair of asteroid clusters in front of and behind Jupiter in its orbit.
  • Putting the two questions together revealed the answer to both.
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A Trip from the Sun to Jupiter at the Speed of Light. Bring a Sandwich.

Watch what it might look like to travel from the sun to Jupiter at the speed of light.

If you lived here, you’d be home by now (ALPHONSE SWINEHEART)

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NASA Discovers Why Saturn's Moon Enceladus May Be the Best Place to Look for Alien Life

NASA scientists discover what two places in the solar system might have favorable conditions for alien life.

An illustration of an image from the Cassini spacecraft of Enceladus' south pole, showcasing its icy plume. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA: The Beating Heart of America's Innovation Industry

As its CEO, Bill Nye lays out the missions The Planetary Society would like to see NASA focus on over the next 20 years. NASA by nature goes where the future is, and Nye can't help but think of another industry that should follow suit.

Why is NASA so important? Let us count the ways – for its intellectual and physical daring, its spinoff technology that has advanced civilization generally (we wouldn’t have the internet without NASA) – but perhaps chief among them is that no matter who you are in the world or how you feel about the United States, NASA earns global respect for its technological achievement and drive towards progress and efficiency. An industry that could learn from that ethos, rather than digging its heels in to delay the future, is fossil fuels. If everyone pulled together in the same direction, it would mean clean, renewable energy for everyone on Earth, much sooner. Bill Nye's most recent book is Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.

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