/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we're not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can't explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter, also released as a preprint paper on arXiv, by Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern, discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them. /news/2025-08-jupiter-galilean-moons-scientists-explore.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:47:16 EDT news674732835 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 How did Earth, alone among the solar system's rocky planets, become the home for life? How, among all this frigid lifelessness, did our planet become warm, hospitable, and life-sustaining? The answer to these questions is complex and multi-faceted, and part of the answer comes from cosmochemistry, an interdisciplinary field that examines how chemical elements are distributed. /news/2025-07-theia-struck-earth-stage-life.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Tue, 08 Jul 2025 10:47:04 EDT news671190421 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 If our solar system seems stable, it's because our short lifespans make it seem that way. Earth revolves, night follows day, the moon moves through light and shadow, and the sun hangs in the sky. But in reality, everything is moving and influencing everything else, and the fine balance we observe can easily be disrupted. Could passing stars have disrupted Earth's orbit and ushered in dramatic climatic changes in our planet's past? /news/2025-06-stellar-flybys-earth-climate-million.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 18 Jun 2025 16:32:04 EDT news669483121 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 To understand how chaotic the early solar system was, we need only gaze at the moon. Its cratered surface bears the scars of multitudes of collisions. The early solar system was like a debris field where objects smashed into each other in cascades of collisions. The same must be true in all young solar systems, and in a new paper, researchers describe how they simulated a collision between two massive planets to see what would happen. /news/2025-05-impact-giant-planet-millions-years.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 08 May 2025 08:51:04 EDT news665913061 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 When astronomers detected the first known interstellar object, 'Oumuamua, in 2017, it sparked a host of new studies trying to understand the origin and trajectory of the galactic sojourner. /news/2025-02-stars-oumuamua.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Feb 2025 10:35:04 EST news659010902 The appearance of the interstellar objects (ISOs) 'Oumuamua and Comet Borisov in 2017 and 2019, respectively, created a surge of interest. What were they? Where did they come from? Unfortunately, they didn't stick around and wouldn't cooperate with our efforts to study them in detail. Regardless, they showed us something: Milky Way objects are moving around the galaxy. /news/2025-02-interstellar-visitors-material-alpha-centauri.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:35:04 EST news658596901 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 The source of Earth's water is an enduring mystery that extends to exoplanets and the notion of habitability. In broad terms, Earth's water was either part of the planet from the beginning of its formation in the solar nebula or delivered later, maybe by asteroids and comets. /news/2024-10-earth-solar.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 25 Oct 2024 12:32:04 EDT news649078322 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 In recent years, the number of known extrasolar planets (aka. exoplanets) has grown exponentially. To date, 5,799 exoplanets have been confirmed in 4,310 star systems, with thousands more candidates awaiting confirmation. What has been particularly interesting to astronomers is how M-type (red dwarf) stars appear to be very good at forming rocky planets. /news/2024-10-exoplanet-binary-red-dwarfs-massive.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 11 Oct 2024 12:37:04 EDT news647869022 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