Tag: Planetary Formation
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Astronomers Point to Hidden Planet Y Beyond Neptune
Unseen Influences in the Outer Solar System For decades, scientists have wondered whether the outer solar system harbors a hidden planet. The latest clue comes from a careful survey of distant icy bodies beyond Neptune. Researchers analyzed roughly 50 Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) and found orbital tilts that don’t align with current models of planetary…
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Architecture Of Planetary Systems With And Without Outer Giant Planets: ILP Detections Around HD 23079, HD 196067, and HD 86226
Introduction: Unraveling the Link Between Outer Giant Planets and Inner Light Planets Understanding whether outer giant planets (OGPs) shape the formation and arrangement of inner light planets (ILPs) is central to planetary-system theory. The debate spans theoretical expectations—some models predict a positive correlation between OGPs and ILPs, while others anticipate an anticorrelation due to dynamical…
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Planet Y: The Hidden World Stirring Up the Solar System’s Edges
What is Planet Y? A new line of inquiry in planetary science centers on a potential “hidden” planet in the far reaches of our solar system. Scientists refer to this hypothetical world as Planet Y. While it has not been directly observed, researchers say unusual tilts and inclinations in the orbits of about 50 distant…
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Sub-Neptunes Are Drier Than Thought: Earth’s Commonality
Sub-Neptunes and the water puzzle: what scientists once believed For years, exoplanet researchers hoped that many worlds beyond our solar system could host vast oceans beneath hydrogen-rich atmospheres. In particular, sub-Neptune planets—planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune—were prime candidates for Hycean worlds, a term blending hydrogen with ocean. The idea was tantalizing: a…
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Earth May Not Be Special: Sub-Neptunes Are Dryer Worlds
The Hycean dream gets reined in In April 2025, scientists drew wide attention to an exoplanet called K2-18b, a world circling a dim dwarf star about 124 light-years away. Early excitement suggested such planets might be covered in global oceans, forming Hycean worlds with hydrogen-rich atmospheres that could harbor life. A fresh analysis led by…
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Earth May Not Be Special: Sub-Neptunes Are Drier Than Before
New evidence reshapes the water story of distant worlds A team led by ETH Zurich, with collaborators from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of California, Los Angeles, has redefined what we should expect from water on planets beyond our solar system. Building on the discussion sparked by the April 2025 discovery…
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Rogue Planet Accretion: Explosive Growth Revealed in Space
Rogue Planet Accretion: An Unprecedented Growth Spurt Astronomers have identified an enormous burst of growth in a wandering planet, a rogue world that drifts through interstellar space without a parent star. The object, Cha 1107-7626, is accumulating gas and dust at a staggering rate of about six billion tons per second — the highest accretion…
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Rogue Planet Baked by Auroras: JWST Finds a Sunless World
JWST Sights a Rogue Planet Baked by Auroras In a groundbreaking study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, an international team used the James Webb Space Telescope to scrutinize a rogue planet — an object formed in a stellar system but later ejected into interstellar space. With no nearby sun to illuminate its atmosphere, the planet…
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JWST Finds Bizarre Planet Baked by Auroras, Far From Any Sun
A Rogue World Illuminated by Auroras A new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics reports that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed a rogue planet — a planetary-mass world drifting in interstellar space, unbound to any star. Far from any solar heat, this world nonetheless shimmers with auroral light across its upper atmosphere.…
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Rogue Planet Auroras Bake a Bizarre World, JWST Finds
Rogue Planet Auroras: A New Kind of Heat Source A recent study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics reports a striking finding: a rogue planet wandering the galaxy—unbound to any star—exhibits auroral emissions so intense they effectively bake parts of its atmosphere. The discovery comes from observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and…