/ en-us Âé¶čÒùÔș internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Âé¶čÒùÔșics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. For the first time, international researchers have pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first specks of planet-forming material—hot minerals just beginning to solidify. This finding marks the first time a planetary system has been identified at such an early stage in its formation and opens a window to the past of our own solar system. /news/2025-07-cosmic-baby-astronomers-witness-dawn.html Astronomy Wed, 16 Jul 2025 11:00:16 EDT news671729512 A small, inconspicuous meteorite may be about to change our understanding of how and when our solar system formed. Tiny shavings from the meteorite Northwest Africa 12264 are challenging the long-held belief that planets near the sun formed earlier than those beyond the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. /news/2025-07-meteorite-timeline-early-solar.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 07 Jul 2025 11:05:40 EDT news671105129 Southwest Research Institute has collaborated with Yale University to summarize the scientific community's notable progress in advancing the understanding of the formation and evolution of the inner rocky planets, the so-called terrestrial planets. Their paper focuses on late accretion's role in the long-term evolution of terrestrial planets, including their distinct geophysical and chemical properties as well as their potential habitability. /news/2025-06-exploring-late-accretion-role-terrestrial.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 18 Jun 2025 16:00:01 EDT news669480731 Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided new clues about how the exoplanet WASP-121b has formed and where it might have originated in the disk of gas and dust around its star. These insights stem from the detection of multiple key molecules: water vapor, carbon monoxide, silicon monoxide, and methane. /news/2025-05-space-pebbles-play-pivotal-role.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:49:23 EDT news667754881 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and elsewhere have detected water ice in a debris disk around HD 181327—a young star located within 160 light years away from the Earth. The finding was reported in a paper published May 14 in the journal Nature. /news/2025-05-ice-debris-disk-young-nearby.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 26 May 2025 09:41:08 EDT news667471259 Is frozen water scattered in systems around other stars? Astronomers have long expected it is, partially based on previous detections of its gaseous form, water vapor, and its presence in our own solar system. /news/2025-05-webb-frozen-young-star.html Astronomy Wed, 14 May 2025 13:09:56 EDT news666446983 A new study by Rice University researchers Sho Shibata and Andre Izidoro presents a compelling new model for the formation of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes—planets that are 1 to 4 times the size of Earth and among the most common in our galaxy. Using advanced simulations, the researchers propose that these planets emerge from distinct rings of planetesimals, providing fresh insight into planetary evolution beyond our solar system. The findings were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. /news/2025-03-super-earths-mini-neptunes-earth.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 11 Mar 2025 13:07:04 EDT news660917221 When Earth first formed, it was too hot to retain ice. This means all the water on our planet must have originated from extraterrestrial sources. Studies of ancient terrestrial rocks suggest liquid water existed on Earth as early as 100 million years after the sun's formation–practically "immediately" on an astrophysical timescale. This water, now over 4.5 billion years old, has been perpetually renewed through Earth's water cycle. /news/2025-02-theory-earth.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Feb 2025 13:17:04 EST news659020621 For the first time, astronomers have imaged dozens of belts around nearby stars where comets and tiny pebbles within them are orbiting. /news/2025-02-astronomers-largest-comets-solar.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 11 Feb 2025 14:45:03 EST news658507501 Understanding where Earth's essential elements came from—and why some are missing—has long puzzled scientists. Now, a new study reveals a surprising twist in the story of our planet's formation. /news/2025-02-meteorite-discovery-held-theories-earth.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Wed, 05 Feb 2025 14:00:21 EST news657966661 Planets are formed when dust and rock in a disk around a young star collide and combine to form ever larger bodies. This so-called accretion is not yet fully understood. Astrophysicists at the University of Duisburg-Essen were able to make significant observations of collision speed and electrical charge of the particles through experiments on a suborbital flight. Their results have just been published in Nature Astronomy. /news/2025-01-suborbital-flight-particle-agglomerates-planet.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 22 Jan 2025 10:27:22 EST news656764030 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have characterized the atmosphere of a hot super-Neptune exoplanet designated WASP-166 b. As a result, they found that the atmosphere of this alien world contains water and carbon dioxide. Their findings were reported Dec. 31 on the arXiv preprint server. /news/2025-01-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-hot-super.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 09 Jan 2025 08:30:01 EST news655617847 New studies led by researchers at the University of Central Florida offer for the first time a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. /news/2024-12-webb-glimpse-icy-planetesimals-early.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:22:30 EST news653826143 Trying to understand the makeup and evolution of the solar system's Kuiper belt has kept researchers busy since it was hypothesized soon after the discovery of Pluto in 1930. In particular, binary pairs of objects there are useful as indicators since their existence today paints a picture of how energetic or violent the evolution of the solar system was in its early days four billion years ago. /news/2024-11-ultrawide-binary-kuiper-belt-earliest.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 26 Nov 2024 07:25:11 EST news651756713 Using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), an international team of astronomers has inspected an icy protoplanetary disk of a young star known as PDS 453. Results of the new study, published on the preprint server arXiv, yield essential information about the structure and composition of this disk. /news/2024-11-explore-icy-protoplanetary-disk-star.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Wed, 13 Nov 2024 08:30:01 EST news650653038 Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results suggest that without 'unmelted' asteroids, there may not have been enough of these compounds on Earth for life to emerge. /news/2024-10-blocks-life-earth-zinc-fingerprints.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:00:01 EDT news647855521 An international team of 45 researchers studying meteor showers has found that not all comets crumble the same way when they approach the sun. In a paper published in the journal Icarus, they ascribe the differences to the conditions in the protoplanetary disk where comets formed 4.5 billion years ago. /news/2024-08-meteor-showers-comets-early-solar.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 22 Aug 2024 12:51:03 EDT news643549861 Using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a Southwest Research Institute-led team has confirmed hydroxyl molecules on the surface of the metallic asteroid Psyche. The presence of hydrated minerals suggests a complex history for Psyche, important context for the NASA spacecraft en route to this interesting asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. /news/2024-08-team-evidence-hydration-asteroid-psyche.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:44:03 EDT news642782641 Our solar system is our immediate cosmic neighborhood. We know it well: the sun at the center; then the rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars; and then the asteroid belt; followed by the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn; then the ice giants Uranus and Neptune; and finally the Kuiper belt with its comets. /news/2024-07-astrophysicists-rapid-planet-formation.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:14:49 EDT news641636083 An international team of researchers led by the University of Bern has used observation-based computer modeling to find an explanation for how macromolecules can form in a short time in disks of gas and dust around young stars. These findings could be crucial for understanding how habitability develops around different types of exoplanets and stars. /news/2024-07-astronomers-rapid-formation-macromolecules-protoplanetary.html Astronomy Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:36:05 EDT news641540158 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of researchers including Paola Caselli, Barbara Michela Giuliano and Basile Husquinet from MPE, have probed deep into dense cloud cores, revealing details of interstellar ice that were previously unobservable. The study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, focuses on the Chamaeleon I region, using JWST's NIRCam to measure spectroscopic lines toward hundreds of stars behind the cloud. /news/2024-07-jwst-interstellar-ice.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 11 Jul 2024 10:57:03 EDT news639914221 Age data for certain classes of meteorite have made it possible to gain new findings on the origin of small water-rich astronomical bodies in the early solar system. These so-called planetesimals continually supplied building materials for planets—also for the Earth, whose original material contained little water. /news/2024-07-age-planetesimals-materials-rich-planets.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:36:04 EDT news639740161 Scientists around the world are constantly on the hunt for planets outside our solar system that could potentially provide a habitable environment for life. /news/2024-06-earth-small-planets.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:17:05 EDT news637931822 A research team led by Prof. Wang Wenzhong from the School of Earth and Space Sciences of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), in collaboration with international scholars, studied the fractionation behavior of nitrogen isotopes during the accretionary evolution of terrestrial planets. /news/2024-06-uncover-nitrogen-early-evolution-earth.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Jun 2024 11:03:03 EDT news637840981 Astronomers have detected carbon in a galaxy just 350 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest detection of any element in the universe other than hydrogen. /news/2024-06-earliest-metal-galaxies.html Astronomy Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:42:50 EDT news636896565 A team of space scientists and chemists at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, UniversitĂ© CĂŽte d'Azur and the Southwest Research Institute has found the planetesimal Arrokoth likely gets its red color from a surface rich in sugars. /news/2024-06-simulation-factors-arrokoth-red-surface.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 04 Jun 2024 09:30:01 EDT news636711703 NASA's Psyche spacecraft passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there's no holding back now. Navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, nearly nonstop as the orbiter zips farther into deep space. /news/2024-05-nasa-psyche-sci-fi-worthy.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 22 May 2024 13:24:15 EDT news635603051 Dead stars known as white dwarfs, have a mass like the sun while being similar in size to Earth. They are common in our galaxy, as 97% of stars will eventually become white dwarfs. As stars reach the end of their lives, their cores collapse into the dense ball of a white dwarf, making our galaxy seem like an ethereal graveyard. /news/2024-05-hungry-white-dwarfs-puzzle-stellar.html Astronomy Fri, 03 May 2024 15:16:12 EDT news633968167 Evidence from the fragments of a destroyed asteroid suggests that the shift in the positions of the giant planets in our solar system billions of years ago happened between 60–100 million years after the solar system's formation and could have been key to the formation of our moon. /news/2024-04-dating-solar-giant-planet-orbital.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 16 Apr 2024 13:14:03 EDT news632492041 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars. /news/2024-03-james-webb-space-telescope-captures.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 04 Mar 2024 15:57:04 EST news628790221