Astronomy

  1. Astronomy

    Super-Earths are not a good place for plate tectonics

    The intense pressures inside super-Earths make plate tectonics less likely, new research suggests.

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  2. Astronomy

    Advice to a baby planet: Avoid black holes

    A dust cloud looping around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole might have once been an infant planet.

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  3. Astronomy

    X-ray rings reveal neutron star’s distance

    Concentric X-ray rings around a neutron star help astronomers triangulate the star’s distance.

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  4. Astronomy

    Dark galaxies grow in abundance

    Nearly 1,000 shadowy galaxies lurk in a nearby cluster, some of which are as massive as the Milky Way and yet have only 0.1 percent the number of stars.

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  5. Astronomy

    Magnetic ‘glue’ helps shape galaxies

    Galaxy-wide magnetic fields may play a role in shaping the spiral arms of gas and stars.

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  6. Astronomy

    Big exoplanet may be surrounded by helium

    Warm Neptune-sized exoplanet might have atmospheres filled with helium.

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  7. Astronomy

    Mars-sized exoplanet is smallest to have its mass measured

    The smallest exoplanet to be weighed is a hot, rocky cousin of the Red Planet.

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  8. Astronomy

    Pluto at last

    Precision matters, whether looking at global temperatures, subatomic particles or the carefully timed approach to a faraway world.

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  9. Astronomy

    Distant galaxy may contain primeval stars

    A stockpile of the first generation of stars might be lighting up gas in a galaxy that existed roughly 800 million years after the Big Bang.

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  10. Planetary Science

    Rendezvous with Pluto

    Earth will get its first good look at Pluto and its five known moons when New Horizons sails past on July 14.

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  11. Astronomy

    Some of sun’s magnetic fields may act more like forests

    A swaying forest of mangrovelike magnetic fields on the sun could be the answer to why the solar atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than the surface.

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  12. Anthropology

    Neandertal bling and more reader feedback

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