Astronomers have recently made two discoveries concerning the atmospheres of two distant planets, including evidence of a stratosphere high above the surface of an exoplanet, and the formation of a massive storm in Neptune’s atmosphere.
read more
Two new discoveries regarding chemical ingredients that are associated with the formation of life on Titan have been announced. With its dense nitrogen, methane and ethane atmosphere, and liquid hydrocarbon seas, Titan is currently of interest to scientists looking to study an environment resembling Earth’s primordial atmosphere, and also are hopeful that the Saturnian moon’s complex chemical soup will yield evidence of extraterrestrial life.
read more
Astronomers have discovered what is now the smallest known star in the galaxy, in a system roughly 600 light-years from Earth. Part of a trinary star system, the smaller of the pair, EBLM J0555-57Ab, is estimated to only be 8 percent of the mass of our own Sun, in a compact package no bigger than Saturn.
This itty-bitty sun may represent the smallest size that a star can be: to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that provides a star’s energy, the gases within must be brought to a high pressure and temperature, meaning that there needs to be enough mass present in the star to provide these conditions.
read more
In the music of the universe, one of the most important sounds to us here on Earth is the song the Sun sings: every system has a resonance, and especially large and energetic ones like the Sun produce sounds that rebound back and forth though its vast sphere. These sound waves can be studied to glean information about the interior workings of our spheres that we would otherwise not be able to access, and recent changes in the Sun’s music has researchers that pay attention to this tune concerned.
read more