News by Subject Space & Planetary

Cornell University astronomers have created five models representing key points from our planet's evolution, like chemical snapshots through Earth's own geologic epochs. The models will be spectral templates for astronomers to use in the approaching new era of powerful telescopes, and in the hunt for Earth-like planets in distant solar systems.

Eighty-five percent of the universe is composed of dark matter, but we don't know what, exactly, it is.

Almost 35 years ago, scientists made the then-radical proposal that colossal hydrogen bombs called novae go through a very long-term life cycle after erupting, fading to obscurity for hundreds of thousands of years and then building up to become full-fledged novae once more. A new study confirms that the novae we observe flashing throughout the universe represent just a few percent of these cataclysmic variables, as they are known, with the rest "hiding" in hibernation.

Model developed by Brazilian researchers shows chaotic phase that placed objects in current orbits beginning within first 100 million years after formation of giant planets.

'These outflows are crucial for the understanding of galaxies' formation,' Arav said. 'They are pushing hundreds of solar masses of material each year.

BU astrophysicist and collaborators reveal a new model of our heliosphere that's shaped somewhere in between a croissant and a beach ball.

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered a pulsating ancient star in a double star system, which will allow them to access important information on the history of how stars like our Sun evolve and eventually die.

An international team of researchers, affiliated with South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has for the first time succeeded in demonstrating the ionization cooling of muons.