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Posts by
Deborah Byrd
Giant planet HR 5183b would look 15 times brighter than Venus
Contrary to previous thought, a giant planet in a wild orbit doesn't mean there can't be an Earth-like planet in the same system. What’s more, the view from that Earth-like world as its giant neighbor moves past would be unlike anything we've ever seen.
November 5, 2019
Voyager 2 sends back insights on interstellar space
Voyager 2 left the realm of the sun's influence a year ago today, becoming the 2nd craft ever to do so. This week, the journal Nature Astronomy published 5 new papers describing what Voyager 2 has been seeing on its journey into the unknown.
November 5, 2019
Scientists study world’s biggest geode
Scientists recently studied the formation of the huge crystals inside the giant geode of Pulpí, located deep in a Spanish mine. They revealed the natural process that grew the crystals, ripening them over thousands of years and making them literally crystal clear.
November 2, 2019
Small asteroid paid a heavy price for almost striking Earth Thursday
Earth's gravity bent the trajectory of asteroid C0PPEV1 - also known as 2019 UN13 - as it swept only 3,852 miles (6,200 km) above Africa. As a result, its farthest point from the sun has now shifted out to the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.
November 1, 2019
Mist over an Antarctic research station
A photo of mist above an Antarctic research station. Sunlight returned to this part of the world in August, after 4 months of continuous night. Now the station is getting ready for an influx of summer visitors.
November 1, 2019
Putting the ‘bang’ in Big Bang
Physicists have pondered how the cold, uniform matter of the inflationary early universe became the ultrahot, complex mixture of matter, space and time that led to the universe we know. New work simulates a bridge between cosmic inflation and ... everything else.
October 29, 2019
Deep-sea nightmares and other ocean spookiness
Eerie denizens of the ocean depths star in this video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
October 29, 2019
Is Earth on fire?
The European Space Agency was asking this question late last week, as multiple fires burned across the globe. Read more about 2019 fires, and fire-tracking via satellite, here.
October 27, 2019
When exoplanets collide
Ten years ago, scientists speculated that warm dust in the exoplanet system BD +20 307 - located 300 light years away - had resulted from a planet-to-planet collision. Now astronomers see 10% more warm dust in this system, further supporting the idea of a collision between worlds.
October 24, 2019
Ice cliffs in Antarctica might not contribute to extreme sea-level rise in this century
A 2016 study suggested tall ice cliffs along Antarctica's coast might collapse rapidly under their own weight and contribute to more than 6 feet of sea-level rise by 2100. Now, MIT researchers have found this prediction may be overestimated.
October 23, 2019
