November 2018
BepiColombo – a mission to explore Mercury
...Mercury is also a key laboratory for surface-bounded exospheres where, as the name implies, the boundary of a planet’s exosphere is the planet’s surface. In the case of Mercury, the density of its exosphere is too low for molecules to behave as a gas...
March 2016
Saving Earth from an Expanding Sun
... effect that erased its oceans and left a desert planet, coated with dense clouds of sulphuric acid and an... Still, like me, you’d probably hanker to do something to help the planet that’s been so kind (and patient) with us. I have some emotional...
January 2018
When it comes to water Mars may not be the promised land
... the fate of the atmosphere and of the water resources of the planet. It has been estimated that 1029 joules of energy released by a... views of many scientists, the water inventory of the planet may not be as much as anticipated. Assuming that ...
19 January 2016
Giant double-planet system around an evolved star detected by astronomers
...also possible that the star might have harboured a third planet that was engulfed as the star expanded, causing the ...their neighbours to cause significant disruption. The number of multi-planet systems found to date, regardless of the central star’s ...
22 January 2016
Possible “Planet Nine” Discovery Announced
...relative to the plane of the eight officially recognized planets. If Planet Nine exists, it would be about the same size... is needed to either prove or disprove the existence of Planet Nine, the overall reaction of the scientific community has so...
27 January 2016
Interaction between protoplanetary disks and planets confirmed by astronomers using ALMA
... radial drift triggered by gas drag. This concentration of large grains could facilitate the formation process of further planets as the particles may grow faster because of enhanced density of solids. “The results of this investigation show that...
