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Astronomers looking for extraterrestrial life forms target planetary systems surrounding stars the size of the sun, and almost every second star in that group is a binary star.
This artist’s impression shows the strange object AR Scorpii. In this unique double star a rapidly spinning white dwarf star (right) powers electrons up to almost the speed of light. These high energy particles release blasts of radiation that lash the companion red dwarf star (left) and cause the e
Tracing path of carbon, scientists rewrite picture of early planet formation When people think about the most important ingredient for life on other planets, they usually talk about water. But there’s another element that makes our existence possible. “We’re carbon-based life forms,” said University of Chicago geophysical scientist Fred Ciesla, “and carbon is an important part of keeping a mild climate.” It can also be used as forensic tool to piece together how the earth and solar system must have formed. In twopapers, Ciesla and colleagues at California ...
Tracing path of carbon, scientists rewrite picture of early planet formation When people think about the most important ingredient for life on other planets, they usually talk about water. But there’s another element that makes our existence possible. “We’re carbon-based life forms,” said University of Chicago geophysical scientist Fred Ciesla, “and carbon is an important part of keeping a mild climate.” It can also be used as forensic tool to piece together how the earth and solar system must have formed. In twopapers, Ciesla and colleagues at California ...
From stardust to pale blue dot: Carbon’s interstellar journey to Earth We are made of stardust, the saying goes, and a pair of studies including University of Michigan research finds that may be more true than we previously thought. The first study, led by U-M researcher Jie (Jackie) Li and published in Science Advances, finds that most of the carbon on Earth was likely delivered from the interstellar medium, the material that exists in space between stars in a galaxy. This likely happened well after the protoplanetary disk, the cloud of dust and gas that circled our young sun and contained...