by Matt Rozsa | Oct 1, 2023 | Salon.com
When on Tuesday scientists lifted the lid off of OSIRIS-REx — a spacecraft that recently visited Bennu, an asteroid which might collide with Earth in the year 2182 — the researchers found something so overwhelming, they literally “gasped” at the “scientific treasure box” just discovered inside.
Those quotes were taken from a post on X (formerly Twitter) by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) division, which is located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center....
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by Matt Rozsa | Sep 6, 2023 | Salon.com
Although the exoplanet TOI-1853 b is roughly the size of Neptune, its mass is almost twice that of any other known planet of comparable size. For this reason, TOI-1853 b should not exist, at least based on the known laws of physics. That is why some scientists have a bold hypothesis — that the strange alien world may only be around because a group of smaller planets collided into each other, according to a recent study in the journal Nature....
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by Matt Rozsa | Aug 25, 2023 | Salon.com
The ice-giant Neptune, the most distant and third largest planet in our solar system, is a distinctive dark blue ball of gas, which may appear calm but is actually throttled by a chaotic atmosphere. It’s actually the windiest place in our solar system. Despite earning the label “ice-giant” in part because of its massive size (and also because it is primarily composed of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium), Neptune is far enough away from Earth that our astronomers continue making new discoveries of this enigmatic world....
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by Matt Rozsa | Jul 16, 2023 | Salon.com
Since 2007, astronomers have proposed the existence of a weird type of star: one powered by the heat of dark matter. In cosmology, dark matter is a difficult thing to explain because we literally don’t know what it is. We can’t see it, hence the name “dark,” but without it factored into our equations of the universe, things just don’t add up....
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by Matt Rozsa | Jul 11, 2023 | Salon.com
Imagine an exoplanet with clouds so shiny, they make it literally the shiniest exoplanet ever discovered by humans. Meet planet LTT9779b, which according to a recent study in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics is covered in metallic clouds. Located 262 light-years from Earth, planet LTT9779b has an atmosphere made of silicates and metals like titanium....
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