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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Distant Stars Spotlight Mini Moons in Saturn’s Rings
By studying how starlight attenuates as it travels through the icy particles encircling Saturn, researchers have zoomed in on a host of small structures in the gas giant’s famous rings.
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Passing Stars Shorten Earth’s Time Horizon
Stars in the solar neighborhood could jostle planetary orbits, making it harder to turn back the clock and examine Earth’s orbital or climate history.
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Rogues’ Gallery Comes in Pairs
A new trove of free-floating planets, smaller and paired up more than expected, challenges stellar and planet formation models.
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Astronomers May Have Spotted the Birth of a Planet
Lumps of dust are spiraling around a young star 5,000 light-years away. They could be Jupiter-like planets in the making.
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Rocky Exoplanet May Have Magnetic Field
Magnetic interactions between stellar wind and the planet likely caused extrasolar space weather.
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Exoplanets May Support Life in the Terminator Zone
A new study finds that the intersection between a searing dayside and a freezing nightside could be habitable.
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Complex Organic Ices Discovered in a Star-Forming Cloud
The presence of complex organic molecules such as methanol, ethanol, and acetaldehyde in a molecular cloud suggests that these and simpler ices might be available to planetary systems right from the start.
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“Hot Jupiter” Is in a Possible Death Spiral
Kepler’s first exoplanet is migrating toward its star, an evolved subgiant that is much bigger than first thought.
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Massive Stars May Commit Grand Theft Planet
New simulations show that planets around young, massive stars may have been captured or stolen rather than homegrown.