Stronger-than-expected ultraviolet flares could either provide exoplanets the sparks of life or prevent them from having life at all.
exoplanets
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Anemic Stars Don’t Host Super-Earths
Planetary systems need the right stuff to make planets, and some stars just don’t have it.
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Smells Like an Exoplanet
Hydrogen sulfide, spotted in the atmosphere of the exoplanet HD 189733 b, helps constrain how the planet formed.
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Magnetic Barriers Might Explain Mysterious Hot Jupiters
Hot Jupiters might end up very close to stars because a magnetic field halts their progress—and future observations could confirm the idea.
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A Magma Ocean Fuels This Exoplanet’s Atmosphere
The finding is an atmospheric first for astronomers but not for the planet.
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A Step Closer to Solving the Fermi Paradox
Finding evidence of complex life elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy hinges on locating rocky planets with plate tectonics and a mixture of landmasses and oceans, new research suggests.
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Red-Light-Loving Bacteria Could Expand the Search for Life
Scientists are uncovering genes responsible for oxygenic photosynthesis in cyanobacteria to shift the search for potentially habitable worlds.
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Towards a Unified Framework for Earth, Mars, Titan, and Exoplanets
From a simple set of in situ or synthetic data, a general unified model has been developed to calculate turbulent fluxes and evaporation rates on any rocky body with an atmosphere.
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Rare “Glory” Possibly Seen on Exoplanet’s Horizon
This rainbow-like atmospheric phenomenon depends on a very specific set of circumstances. It is common on Earth and incredibly rare beyond it.
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Tatooine, Trisolaris, Thessia: Sci-Fi Exoplanets Reflect Real-Life Discoveries
After astronomers discovered exoplanets wildly different from Earth, exoplanets in science fiction became less Earth-like, too.