345 results
345 results for: exoplanet
- Planetary Science
How alien ‘canals’ sparked debate over life on Mars
In The Martians, journalist David Baron recounts scientific and public debate over purported intelligent life on the Red Planet.
- Astronomy
A claimed hint of alien life whips up spirited debate
Astronomers have a lot of thoughts about the latest paper claiming we’ve found the strongest hints of alien life yet on the distant planet K2 18b.
- Plants
Putrid plants can reek of hot rotting flesh with one evolutionary trick
Some stinky plants independently evolved an enzyme to take the same molecule behind our bad breath and turn it into the smell of rotting flesh.
- Physics
A weird ice that may form on alien planets has finally been observed
High-pressure experiments generated the first direct observation of plastic ice, which has qualities of both crystalline ice and liquid water.
- Space
The nearest single star to Earth has four small planets
Last year, astronomers announced that a planet orbits Barnard’s star. Now, researchers have confirmed the existence of three more.
- Space
‘Star Wars’ holds clues to making speedier spacecraft in the real world
Controlled fusion, solar sails or ion engines could someday help spaceships travel between star systems.
- Space
How a Harvard maverick forever changed our concept of the stars
At just 25, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin applied quantum physics to a treasure trove of astronomical observations to show that stars are mostly hydrogen and helium.
- Planetary Science
New Horizons visited Pluto 10 years ago. We’re still learning from it
Over the past decade, researchers have been puzzling through Pluto’s mysteries. Meanwhile, the New Horizons probe heads for interstellar space.
- Space
JWST spots the first known ‘steam world’
Astronomers have found a world shrouded in an atmosphere of water vapor, orbiting a star 100 light-years away.
- Life
How these strange cells may explain the origin of complex life
The tiny pantheon known as the Asgard archaea bear traits that hint at how plants, animals and fungi emerged on Earth.
- Planetary Science
Mars’ potato-shaped moons could be the remains of a shredded asteroid
Phobos and Deimos could have formed from asteroid debris, a new study suggests. An upcoming sample return mission will help test the idea.
- Astronomy
Barnard’s star has at least one planet orbiting it after all
After decades of searching, a telltale gravitational wobble points to an exoplanet orbiting the nearby red dwarf every 3.15 days.
