solar system – News Stories About solar system - Page 4

Planet-Hunters Make
Biggest Find Yet: Vast
New Solar System

Aug 25, 2010 2:27 AM CDT

Planet-Hunters Make Biggest Find Yet: Vast New Solar System

Up to 7 planets spotted orbiting distant star

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered the most planet-rich solar system outside our own ever discovered. At least five, and possibly seven, planets orbit a star 127 light years away called HD 10180. Researchers say they have clearly detected five Neptune-like planets and signs of two smaller ones. One is just 1.4...

Earth Not
So Old

Earth Not So Old

Planet was 100 million years in the making

(Newser) - Earth may have taken much longer to form after the birth of the solar system than was previously believed—making it a mere 4.467 billion years old, compared to its previously estimated age of 4.567 billion years. Geologists made the new calculations by comparing chemicals from the earth's...

The Sun Plays Music: Scientists

Giant magnetic fields vibrate like guitar strings

(Newser) - The sun produces its own music, and scientists have been able to re-create and record it, the Telegraph reports. Astronomers analyzed magnetic loops that vibrate around the sun's atmosphere and found the "coronal loops" move—a little like violin strings, a little like wind inside a flute. By taking...

Pluto Turning Redder

Feb 5, 2010 2:10 AM CST

Pluto Turning Redder

Hubble photos reveal major changes on ex-planet's surface

(Newser) - Astronomers haven't been ignoring Pluto since its demotion to "dwarf planet" in 2006, particularly now that it's putting on a color show for scientists. Newly processed images from the Hubble Space Telescope have given scientists their best view yet of Pluto, which is 20% redder than it used to...

Mammoth Ring
Found Around Saturn

Oct 7, 2009 12:28 PM CDT

Mammoth Ring Found Around Saturn

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered a colossal ring around Saturn, the biggest planetary ring yet found. It's enormous even by solar system standards: Among the analogies being used to make it clear to our little earthly minds is that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it. "This thing is...

Saturn's Rings
Vanish Today

Aug 11, 2009 2:14 AM CDT

Saturn's Rings Vanish Today

They'll be out of sight for three months

(Newser) - Saturn's rings will disappear from sight for three months starting today, Space.com reports. The rings, 170,000 miles long but only 30 feet thick, are visible because they reflect sunlight. But they vanish once every 15 years as equinoxes occur in its 30-year orbit and the rings are directly...

Surprise: Mercury
Has a Personality

Apr 30, 2009 8:35 PM CDT

Surprise: Mercury Has a Personality

(Newser) - Mercury's not such a dull planet after all. A new batch of papers in Science spells out evidence of a busy volcanic past and describes an unusual impact crater that would stretch from Boston to DC, reports Wired. The papers, which draw from the October flyby of NASA's Messenger craft,...

Search for 'Earth's Twin'
Finds Similar-Sized Planet

Apr 21, 2009 5:36 PM CDT

Search for 'Earth's Twin' Finds Similar-Sized Planet

(Newser) - Astronomers in Chile looking for an Earth-like planet have discovered the closest one in size yet, the BBC reports. Don’t get your hopes up: Though Gliese 581 e, which lies outside our solar system, is just twice as large as Earth, it travels far too close to its sun...

Scientists Spot End of World

Apr 21, 2009 2:50 AM CDT

Scientists Spot End of World

Remains of solar systems discovered around dead stars

(Newser) - Astronomers looking at dead stars trillions of miles away believe they have glimpsed Earth's eventual fate, the Times of London reports. The scientists found that many white dwarfs—stars that swelled, burned out, and collapsed—are surrounded by a dust they think is the remnants of planets like ours destroyed...

Pluto Is Still a Planet,
Illinois Senate Declares

Mar 6, 2009 12:59 PM CST

Pluto Is Still a Planet, Illinois Senate Declares

(Newser) - Having helped install a hometown boy in the White House and ousted its colorful governor, Illinois is next out to save Pluto, the Guardian reports. The state senate blasted the International Astronomical Union’s 2006 decision to demote the erstwhile ninth planet to a “dwarf planet,” and voted...

Moon Rocks Still Giving Up Gritty Secrets

Jul 8, 2008 6:00 AM CDT

Moon Rocks Still Giving Up Gritty Secrets

Lunar rocks have helped unlock secrets of solar system, demise of dinosaurs

(Newser) - Almost 40 years after Apollo astronauts brought samples of the moon back to Earth, the extraterrestrial rocks are still yielding new information, the New York Times reports. In addition to attention from the Johnson Space Center, where they reside, samples are mailed out—on loan only, and usually less than...

Mercury Is Shrinking

Jul 3, 2008 6:35 PM CDT

Mercury Is Shrinking

Messenger spacecraft reveals planets core still molten

(Newser) - The planet Mercury is shrinking, the LA Times reports. Data from NASA’s Mercury Messenger spacecraft reveal that the planet’s diameter has shrunk by a mile over its history, probably because its core is cooling. Messenger flew in for a close-up in January, and scientists are now piecing together...

Earth Hits Cosmic Pitch

Jul 1, 2008 3:55 PM CDT

Earth Hits Cosmic Pitch

Cacophonous radiation beamed from planet could easily be intercepted by aliens

(Newser) - Earth’s atmosphere produces a natural sound and beams it off into the universe, Space.com reports. The sound—a painful series of chirps and whistles—is made by the collision of charged particles from the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field.

There's a Huge Moon
on the Rise

Jun 17, 2008 4:59 PM CDT

There's a Huge Moon on the Rise

Solstice makes heavenly body look bigger tonight, tomorrow—but it's an illusion

(Newser) - Northern Hemisphere residents, check out the night sky tomorrow for an extra-large-looking moon. The moon illusion—a trick our brain plays on us—is enhanced by the summer solstice, and when Earth's satellite rises close to the horizon, conditions are perfect, LiveScience notes.

Saturn Moon Holds
Recipe for Life

Mar 27, 2008 9:27 AM CDT

Saturn Moon Holds Recipe for Life

Life's 'building blocks' found in massive geysers

(Newser) - Basic components of life like heat, organic chemicals, and water have been found on a Saturn moon, Reuters reports. A spacecraft flying over Enceladus this month spotted 500-mile-high geysers spouting off its surface, containing water vapor and the organic molecules found in living things. Though no one’s saying there’...

New Solar System Sparks Hope for
Other Life

Feb 15, 2008 4:10 AM CST

New Solar System Sparks Hope for Other Life

Maybe we're not alone, say astronomers

(Newser) - Excited astronomers say that the discovery of a solar system with strong similarities to our own raises the chances of other life out there. The system has two gas giants similar to Jupiter and Saturn orbiting at a similar distance from the alien sun 5,000 light years away, and...

Mercury 'Spider Crater' Spotted

Jan 31, 2008 10:19 AM CST

Mercury 'Spider Crater' Spotted

Probe reveals never-before-seen side of Mercury

(Newser) - NASA's first probe to Mercury in more than 30 years has made some spectacular finds, including a mysterious new crater dubbed "the spider," Space.com reports. The network of cracks radiating from the impact crater photographed by the probe is like nothing else ever seen in the solar...

Solar System Is Dented: Voyager

Dec 11, 2007 9:18 AM CST

Solar System Is Dented: Voyager

Intrepid spacecraft finds strange bulges in the heliosphere

(Newser) - Far out in space, a violent boundary zone marks the point where our solar system ends and outer space begins. NASA's Voyager 2 has now confirmed what its sister ship indicated: that this region is squashed and uneven, Space.com reports. This shock wave "sloshes back and forth like...

Planet Found Orbiting Star

Nov 6, 2007 10:28 PM CST

Planet Found Orbiting Star

Gas giant is 45 times the size of Earth

(Newser) - Astronomers have found a planet that’s at least 45 times the size of Earth orbiting a star 41 light years away, Space.com reports. The giant ball of gas is the fifth planet discovered around the star 55 Cancri. And while it's not a "twin of our solar...

NASA Launches Asteroid Rocket

Sep 27, 2007 10:30 AM CDT

NASA Launches Asteroid Rocket

First 'interplanetary' spaceship to visit two asteroids

(Newser) - This morning NASA launched a spacecraft that's headed to the asteroid belt, where it will get a close-up look at the belt's largest bodies, asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. It's NASA’s first multi-target mission, and Dawn, which one engineer called “the first real interplanetary spaceship,...