Solar system simulations starting from varied initial conditions suggest that Earth-like planets can emerge naturally from planet formation. Computer simulations of planetary systems can now begin from thousands of different starting conditions, allowing researchers to explore how worlds might emerge without assuming the final outcome. Over the past three decades, these models have advanced from [...]

Future spacecraft may travel farther by drawing momentum from planets, sunlight, and the solar wind instead of onboard fuel. Every conventional rocket faces the same problem: it must carry the material that propels it. Since Konstantin Tsiolkovsky described the rocket equation in 1903, spacecraft have burned fuel and expelled it backward to move forward under [...]

China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter caught a rare glimpse of 3I/ATLAS as it swept past Mars, revealing the hazy coma and tail of a comet born beyond our solar system. The interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS just flew past Mars, and China’s Tianwen-1 mission managed to snap some pics with its high-resolution camera. According to the China [...]

Titan’s resources could one day make Saturn’s largest moon a major outpost for deep space exploration. Titan is one of the few places in the Solar System where the landscape can feel strangely familiar and completely alien at the same time. Saturn’s largest moon has weather, clouds, rain, lakes, and seas, but its cycle is [...]

A strange new hypothesis.

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Could the Universe hold minds built from radically different stuff?

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It might be right in front of us.

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It’s 2158, and you’re chugging away on your PhD in Planetary Volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get paid a sub-living wage, so you’ve been stuck eating freeze-dried ramen for the past three years. You’ve completed studying Jupiter’s moon, Io, but now you have to leave the solar system […]

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Here's how to see it.

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One of the most violent events the Solar System has ever witnessed.

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It’s 2134, and humanity has finally embraced green technologies while ridding the Earth of harmful fossil-burning technologies, most notably gasoline, wood, coal, and oil. As a result, soot has been rendered obsolete, and all commercial products from soot, including shoes, wires, computer products, and eye products, are now produced from eco-friendly technologies. However, the uber-rich […]

The post JWST finds exoplanets choked by diesel smog appeared first on Knowridge Science Report.

Here’s one of the most unsettling facts in all of science. The universe is not just expanding, it’s expanding faster and faster. Every galaxy is moving away from every other galaxy, and the further away it is, the faster it goes and worse still, that acceleration is speeding up. Whatever is driving it, and we […]

The post The Universe is Still Running Away From Us appeared first on Knowridge Science Report.

How supermassive black holes (SMBH) in the center of galaxies accrete material, how they feedback into the surrounding region, and how they regulate these to influence the evolution of their galaxies are all hot topics in astronomical/astrophysical research. Astronomers are nearly certain that all large galaxies like the Milky Way have a SMBH, and detailed […]

The post This is how supermassive black holes feed themselves appeared first on Knowridge Science Report.

A new Keck Observatory study indicates that giant planets can spin faster than more massive brown dwarfs, revealing important clues about how planetary systems form and evolve. Astronomers have long suspected that a planet’s mass may be linked to how quickly it spins. In our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn rotate especially fast, each completing [...]

Models suggest that impact-ejected material from Earth could reach Venus’ clouds and potentially survive there briefly. Panspermia is the idea that life, or the ingredients needed for life, can move through space on asteroids, comets, and other objects. If life’s building blocks appear on one planet, a powerful impact could blast material from its surface [...]