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Ceres Bright Spot is Salty
Spectral observations by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reveal that the dwarf planet’s mysterious beacon is made of salt. A patchwork of bright splashes inside Occator Crater on Ceres continues to puzzle planetary scientists. NASA's Dawn spacecraft recorded this...
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Tour July’s Sky: Planets on Parade
Sky & Telescope's astronomy podcast takes you on a guided tour of the night sky. In early evening look for Jupiter in the southwest, with Mars and Saturn embedded in Scorpius toward south. For us northerners, July is a time of long, hot days. Yet on July...
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Newfound Object 2016 HO3 Shares Earth’s Orbit
A recently discovered asteroid plays leapfrog with Earth as they both orbit around the Sun. The strange orbit of Apollo asteroid 2016 HO 3. (Click to see bigger image.) NASA / JPL-Caltech Our fair planet has a tiny companion, an asteroid that shares our...
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How planetary age reveals water content
Water is necessary for life as we know it, but too much water is bad for habitability. Therefore, to study the habitability of extrasolar planets, determining the abundance of water is a key element. Astronomers now show that the observation of exoplanets...

What happens when you steam a planet?
Numerical models show hot, rocky exoplanets can change their chemistry by vaporizing rock-forming elements in steam atmospheres that are then partially lost to space.

When it comes to brown dwarfs, 'how far?' is a key question
Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars. They're stars' dim, low-mass siblings and they fade in brightness over time. They're fascinating to astronomers for a variety of reasons, but much about them remains unknown. New work reports the distances...

Newborn giant planet grazes its star
For the past 20 years, exoplanets known as 'hot Jupiters' have puzzled astronomers. These giant planets orbit 100 times closer to their host stars than Jupiter does to the Sun, which increases their surface temperatures. But how and when in their history...

NASA's K2 finds newborn exoplanet around young star
Astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. The newfound planet, K2-33b, is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. It is only 5 to 10 million years old, making it one of a very few...