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Topic: Astronomy (page 12)

Photomicrograph Of Martian Meteorite Alh84001 (Getty Images)

Mars meteorite mystery persists

Nicholas Booth, Elizabeth Howell

The constellation Orion, with the star Betelgeuse glowing yellow (VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Betelgeuse's weird dimming, explained

This illustration shows a night-side view of the exoplanet WASP-76b. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400 degrees Celsius, high enough to vaporise metals. Strong winds carry iron vapour to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets. To the left of the image, we see the evening border of the exoplanet, where it transitions from day to night. (ESO/M. Kornmesser)

The planet with iron rain

Hale-Bopp Comet behind the Very Large Array (VLA) Radio Telescope near Socorro, New Mexico. (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The mystery of the extragalactic signal

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Comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko (ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team/Salon)

Why a nearby comet keeps changing colors

The IceCube Laboratory at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, in Antarctica, hosts the computers collecting raw data. Due to satellite bandwidth allocations, the first level of reconstruction and event filtering happens in near real time in this lab. Only events selected as interesting for physics studies are sent to UW–Madison, where they are prepared for used by any member of the IceCube Collaboration. (Felipe Pedreros/IceCube/NSF)

Weird neutrinos are baffling physicists

(Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images)

Even planets have their (size) limits

Natalie Hinkel - The Conversation

Planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, a Red Dwarf Star. ( Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The super-Earth next door

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Radio transmission to the Milky way galaxy and star dusts in deep space (Getty Images)

A "mystery signal" hits home

This artist’s impression shows the supergiant star Betelgeuse as it was revealed thanks to different state-of-the-art techniques on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), which allowed two independent teams of astronomers to obtain the sharpest ever views of the supergiant star Betelgeuse. They show that the star has a vast plume of gas almost as large as our Solar System and a gigantic bubble boiling on its surface. These discoveries provide important clues to help explain how these mammoths shed material at such a tremendous rate. (ESO/L. Calçada)

Why Betelgeuse may go supernova

This illustration shows the white dwarf WDJ0914+1914 and its Neptune-like exoplanet. Since the icy giant orbits the hot white dwarf at close range, the extreme ultraviolet radiation from the star strips away the planet’s atmosphere. While most of this stripped gas escapes, some of it swirls into a disc, itself accreting onto the white dwarf. (ESO/M. Kornmesser)

A dissolving exoplanet's prophesy

This is an artist's concept of a plume of water vapor thought to be ejected off the frigid, icy surface of the Jovian moon Europa, located about 500 million miles (800 million kilometers) from the sun. Spectroscopic measurements from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope led scientists to calculate that the plume rises to an altitude of 125 miles (201 kilometers) and then it probably rains frost back onto the moon's surface. Previous findings already pointed to a subsurface ocean under Europa's icy crust. (NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWRI)

Jupiter's moon Europa teems with water

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Saturn with moons (Getty Images)

An Earth-like moon orbiting Saturn

Neptune's inner moons Naiad and Thalassa enable them to avoid each other as they race around the planet. (NASA)

Neptune's strange, "dancing" moons

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying 60 Starlink satellites on November 11, 2019 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Starlink constellation will eventually consist of thousands of satellites designed to provide world wide high-speed internet service. (Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Why Elon Musk is infuriating astronomers

Hubble Ultra Deep Field conceptualized as a sphere (Nasa/Salon)

Why the universe may end with a crunch

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A new SPHERE/VLT image of Hygiea, which could be the Solar System’s smallest dwarf planet yet. As an object in the main asteroid belt, Hygiea satisfies right away three of the four requirements to be classified as a dwarf planet: it orbits around the Sun, it is not a moon and, unlike a planet, it has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. The final requirement is that it have enough mass that its own gravity pulls it into a roughly spherical shape. This is what VLT observations have now revealed about Hygiea. (ESO/P. Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS))

Is Hygiea the new Pluto?

The Earth if it had two moons (Getty Images/Salon)

Do we owe our existence to the Moon?

Keith A. Spencer

This image provided by the Illustris Collaboration in May 2014 shows light distribution of a massive cluster in a simulation of the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang. (AP Photo/Illustris Collaboration) (AP)

Nobel Prize for Big Bang breakthroughs

Robert T. Fisher - The Conversation

Artist's concept of the hypothetical Planet Nine (Caltech/R. Hurt [IPAC])

Is Planet 9 a tiny black hole?

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(Caltech)

Meet the weirdest planet in the galaxy

(Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images)

Exoplanets better suited for life?

Mike Wehner - BGR

(Getty/3quarks)

Planet-shaping tsunami found on Mars

Picture taken from the Apollo XI Lunar Module (LM) showing the flag of the United States and the footprints of astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin on the surface of the moon, 21 July 1969. (- / NASA / AFP)

Mapping the Moon for Apollo

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