pale blue dot
Our home planet, Earth, is the third of the four smaller inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars). It is also the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life. Our planet is full of diverse and complex systems that sustain life as we know it. But it is also just one small …
Continue reading “10 Fascinating Earth Facts Linked to the Solar System”
A recent study led by Peter Behroozi of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland suggests that the vast majority of Earth-like planets in the universe have yet to be born. Using computer simulations to model planet formation around stars in the Milky Way galaxy, Behroozi and his team found that only 8% …
Continue reading “New Study Suggests 92% of Earth-Like Planets Have Yet to Be Born”
NASA’s space observatory Kepler may have discovered a possibly Earth-like planet, named Kepler-452b, a rocky world orbiting a Sun-like star at almost the exact same distance Earth orbits our own Sun. “The new Earth” is located 1,400 light-years from us. It orbits a Sun-like star that is 4% more massive and 10% brighter than our …
Last week, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft began sending stunning shots of Pluto on its flyover back to the Earth. Here is a beautiful Pluto flyover video created from the images from New Horizons’ closest approach to the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015.
Earth is our one and only home. But, is it possible for humanity to leave its home and visit other stars (or other stars that have planets, actually) in the future?
The farthest spacecraft from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 1 (see notes 1) probe took a photo of planet Earth on February 14, 1990, from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40 AU (see notes 2) from Earth. The photo is known as the Pale Blue Dot. In the photograph, Earth is …
