When NASA first started planning the Kepler mission, no one knew if the universe held any planets outside our solar system. Thousands of exoplanets later, the search enters a new phase as Kepler retires.
Planetary protection protocols try to make sure we don’t seed places like Mars with life from our planet. An astrobiologist argues they’re misguided – especially with human astronauts on the horizon.
Imagine the Earth pulling everything it is made up of, all of its mass, towards its centre. This happens evenly all over the Earth, causing it to take on a round shape.
While we on Earth are familiar with our own star, the Sun, the European Space Agency’s PLATO mission will explore solar systems similar to ours as well as those that are more exotic.
What caused the Big Bang is still a mystery. And that’s just one of the many unanswered questions, in spite of everything we do know about the birth of the Universe.
The images are in from the Juno probe’s closest flyby so far of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Citizen scientists are now getting involved in processing those images.
We may need to re-think our models of Jupiter’s formation thanks to the first results from Juno probe orbiting the planet, and new observations from Earth.
A group of astronomers are trying to reclassify Pluto as full ‘planet’. But there are good reasons to leave our classification system alone, and this doesn’t mean Pluto is any less interesting.