Posts by

Paul Scott Anderson

Planet orbiting 2 stars discovered by TESS

NASA's TESS mission has just found its first planet orbiting 2 stars. It's a Jupiter-sized world that takes less than an Earth-year to complete one orbit.

Paul Scott Anderson

November 21, 2021

Piece of the moon? Asteroid might have lunar origin

Astronomers at the University of Arizona say that a peculiar near-Earth asteroid may actually be a lost piece of the moon that broke off in the ancient past.

Paul Scott Anderson

November 18, 2021

Weird rocky exoplanets unlike any seen before

Astronomers say they have evidence for weird rocky exoplanets that are unlike any in our own solar system, based on the chemical analysis of white dwarf stars.

Paul Scott Anderson

November 9, 2021

Revealing hidden alien oceans, with chemistry

NASA scientists say that to find hidden alien oceans on distant exoplanets, use chemistry. Ocean worlds will have distinctly different atmospheric compositions from planets that don't have oceans, including a lack of ammonia.

Paul Scott Anderson

November 5, 2021

Exoplanet lost its atmosphere in ancient impact

A young Earth-sized exoplanet lost its atmosphere in a giant impact about 200,000 years ago, leaving behind clues in leftover dust and carbon monoxide gas.

Paul Scott Anderson

November 4, 2021

A new field guide for hot Jupiters

A new field guide for hot Jupiters combines Hubble Space Telescope observations with theoretical models. It should inform ideas about planet formation.

Paul Scott Anderson

Deborah Byrd

October 28, 2021

Asteroid Bennu’s boulder mystery solved

Asteroid Bennu's boulder mystery has now been solved, scientists say. Highly porous rocks explain the abundant large rocks but lack of fine sand-like regolith.

Paul Scott Anderson

October 27, 2021

See 42 of the largest asteroids in new images

Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have obtained new and more detailed images of 42 of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt.

Paul Scott Anderson

October 24, 2021

Moon-forming disk around super-Jupiter exoplanet?

Astronomers say that there may be moons being created in a moon-forming disk of dust around a giant super-Jupiter planet (or brown dwarf) 500 light-years away.

Paul Scott Anderson

October 21, 2021

Weird radio waves from the heart of the Milky Way

An international team of astronomers has detected weird radio waves coming from the heart of the Milky Way. They are unlike any found before, and may originate from a new type of cosmic object.

Paul Scott Anderson

October 17, 2021

Paul Scott Anderson

Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. He studied English, writing, art and computer/publication design in high school and college. He later started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was later renamed Planetaria. He also later started the blog Fermi Paradoxica, about the search for life elsewhere in the universe. While interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science and SETI. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis with Universe Today. He has also written for SpaceFlight Insider and AmericaSpace and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly. He also did some supplementary writing for the iOS app Exoplanet. He has been writing for EarthSky since 2018, and also assists with proofing and social media.