Tag: Planets
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Dwarfy McPlanetface? The icy world known as 2007 OR10 cries out for a name
An illustration lines up the solar system’s four largest dwarf planets, with 2007 OR10 in the middle of the pack. (Credit: Andras Pal / Konkoly Observatory, Ivan Eder / Hungarian Astronomical Association, NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI) Observations made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope suggest that the icy world known as 2007 OR10 is bigger than…
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1,284 new worlds! Kepler mission doubles its tally of planets in one fell swoop
A graphic shows the diversity of planets. (Credit: NASA) The scientists behind NASA’s Kepler mission are using statistics to put their campaign to identify new planets into overdrive: New software that automates the process has verified 1,284 candidates as genuine planets rather than celestial “impostors,” more than doubling its database of confirmed worlds. “This is the…
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NASA keeps its eye on a trio of potentially habitable planets just 40 light-years away
An artist’s impression shows an imagined view from the surface one of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth. (Credit: ESO) Three potentially habitable and definitely weird planets have been detected orbiting an ultracool dwarf star that’s 40 light-years away from Earth. They’re too far to visit anytime soon,…
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Hubble Space Telescope spots a moon circling faraway dwarf planet Makemake
An artist’s conception shows the distant dwarf planet Makemake with its dark moon, MK 2, lurking to the right. (Credit: NASA / ESA / A. Parker / SwRI) Chalk up another moon for the dwarf planets: Astronomers have sifted through imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope to find a tiny satellite circling Makemake. Makemake (pronounced Mah-kay-mah-kay, like the Rapa…
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‘Planet Nine’? Astronomers boost the case for a large, unseen Planet X
An artist’s conception shows a “super-Earth” planet far from the sun. (Credit: R. Hurt / IPAC / Caltech) For decades, astronomers have gone back and forth over whether a “Planet X” exists on the edge of our solar system – and now two researchers have laid out new evidence supporting the claim, including a rough idea…
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Postal Service geeks out with space stamps for Pluto, planets, the moon and Star Trek
The U.S. Postal Service’s souvenir sheet of four stamps contains two new stamps appearing twice. The first stamp shows an artist’s rendering of the New Horizons spacecraft and the second shows the spacecraft’s enhanced color image of Pluto taken near closest approach. (Credit: Antonio Alcala / USPS) For the first time since 1991, Pluto and…