Page 3 - Planets Moons News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

High-precision noble gas analyses indicate that solar wind particles from our primordial Sun were encased in the Earth's core over 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers from Heidelberg University have concluded that the particles made their way into the overlying rock mantle over millions of years. The scientists found solar noble gases in an iron meteorite they studied. Because of their chemical composition, such meteorites are often used as natural models for the Earth's metallic core.

Astronomers have identified more than 4,000, and counting, confirmed exoplanets -- planets orbiting stars other than the sun -- but only a fraction have the potential to sustain life. Now, new research from UBC's Okanagan campus is using the geology of early planet formation to help identify those that may be capable of supporting life.

 E-Mail Credit: NASA and JPL-Caltech. One of the great mysteries of modern space science is neatly summed up by the view from NASA's Perseverance, which just landed on Mars: Today it's a desert planet, and yet the rover is sitting right next to an ancient river delta. The apparent contradiction has puzzled scientists for decades, especially because at the same time that Mars had flowing rivers, it was getting less than a third as much sunshine as we enjoy today on Earth. But a new study led by University of Chicago planetary scientist Edwin Kite, an assistant professor of geophysical science...

 E-Mail COLUMBUS, Ohio - In the continuing search for dark matter in our universe, scientists believe they have found a unique and powerful detector: exoplanets. In a new paper, two astrophysicists suggest dark matter could be detected by measuring the effect it has on the temperature of exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system. This could provide new insights into dark matter, the mysterious substance that can't be directly observed, but which makes up roughly 80% of the mass of the universe. "We believe there should be about 300 billion exoplanets that are waiting to be disco...

 E-Mail Understanding whether Mars was once able to support life has been a major driving force for Mars research over the past 50 years. To decipher the planet's ancient climate and habitability, researchers look to the rock record - a physical record of ancient surface processes which reflect the environment and the prevailing climate at the time the rocks were deposited. In a new paper published in JGR: Planets, researchers on the NASA-JPL Mars Science Laboratory mission used the Curiosity rover to add another piece to the puzzle of Mars' ancient past by investigating a unit of rocks wit...