Two articles in Science News April 28 and May 12, 2018, focus on what we have learned about the 5000 possible exoplanets Kepler has found. Now we await […]
Since wet chemists on Earth have not reinvented life from scratch—not one self-reproducing living critter, nor even a self-serving prion–we can probably assume that it’s not […]
WASHINGTON — From the lovable, candy-munching E.T. to the deadly Xenomorphs from the “Alien” movies, science-fiction stories are bursting with all kinds of alien encounters. But […]
Scientists have confirmed that all seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system circle their star in a sort of gravitational lockstep with one another. The orbits of […]
KELT-11b will help astronomers develop the best tools for assessing habitability or possible life on distant exoplanets. Since the largest exoplanets are the easiest to spot […]
Research suggests that gravitational interactions forced Mars out of the asteroid belt and toward the sun about 120 million years after the birth of the solar […]
The conditions for habitable exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system might depend on the presence of large moons — and Earth reveals clues to why. While we […]
Discovering several Earth-size planets around TRAPPIST-1 means the likelihood of finding life within the habitable zones of other star systems could be much greater than previously […]
For the first time ever, astronomers have discovered seven Earth-size planets orbiting a nearby star — and these new worlds could hold life. This cluster of […]