A young star is lashing its orbiting exoplanet with so much fury that it’s sporadically ripping away vast amounts of atmosphere. The exoplanet is AU Microscopii b (or AU Mic b), and it’s orbiting...
Ancient grains of dust are revealing the life story of a Solar System asteroid. According to an analysis of grains collected from asteroid Ryugu, at least part of the carbon-rich rock started its life...
Our Solar System is a pretty busy place. There are millions of objects moving around – everything from planets, to moons, to comets, and asteroids. And each year we’re discovering more and more objects...
We know that meat has a substantial impact on the planet, and that plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable. But exactly how much impact does the food we eat have on environmental outcomes and...
The galaxy can throw some odd curveballs, but an exoplanet discovered 1,232 light-years away is one of the oddest yet. It’s WASP-193b, and while it’s nearly 50 percent bigger than Jupiter, it’s so light...
The shiniest exoplanet ever found in our galaxy has clouds made of glass and titanium. It’s called LTT-9779b, located some 263 light-years away, and it’s so shiny that it’s almost a mirror, reflecting a...
A gas giant exoplanet 634 light-years away has a quirk in its atmosphere that suggests it may have swallowed a smaller world. It’s WASP-76b, and it’s already famous for being one of the hottest...
Ravine-like channels on Mars are something of a puzzle. They look like the gullies in Antarctica caused by melting glaciers, but the elevated locations of many of the features aren’t places we’d expect to...
The search for planets outside our Solar System – exoplanets – is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. Over the past few decades, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been detected and...
If a planet has an atmosphere, it’s probably leaking, some faster than others. And astronomers have just found a hum-dinger: an atmosphere so leaky it’s spurting out in giant jets. The exoplanet responsible for...