Astronomers have discovered an earth-sized exoplanet, designated TOI-2431 b, that is so close to its host star that it completes a full orbit in just 5 hours and 22 minutes.1,2 Or, to put it another way, this planet’s year is less than six hours long! Astronomers designate exoplanets having orbital periods less than one Earth day long as ultra-short period (USP) exoplanets. Out of the approximately 6,000 known exoplanets, a... More...
When the New Horizons space probe captured images of Pluto and its large moon Charon as it flew by in 2015, conventional scientists were surprised by the small number of craters in Charon’s southern hemisphere.1 This suggested a relatively young surface, despite Charon’s presumed age of over four billion years. How could they account for this?
Theorists proposed that a subsurface ocean developed on... More...
Recently, a team of scientists released data collected from 800,000 galaxies at different distances from Earth, all lying within the same narrow slice of the sky. Conventional scientists believe the data from this COSMOS-Web survey, obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will enable them to see how galaxies evolved over time. Yet these data from the COSMOS-Web survey are “challenging” to naturalistic theorie... More...
There was celebration, albeit briefly, for the discovery of potential life on a planet called K2-18b, which is 124 lightyears away from Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) picked up light from a small red sun as it passed through the atmosphere of this planet. BBC reported an analysis of the findings at Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy.
The Cambridge group has foun... More...
A team of German planetary scientists has concluded that a three-kilometer-thick northern polar ice cap on Mars has a “surprisingly young” age of between 2 and 12 million years.1,2 This age is much younger than uniformitarian age estimates for any other large feature on the red planet1 and is consistent with other clues suggesting that Mars is relatively young, not billions of years old.
As an ic... More...
Barring cloud cover, about 75% of the country saw the total lunar eclipse, aka the “Blood Worm Moon.” Texas had good weather conditions for last night’s display, as did the lower Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and a portion of the Central Plains.
In a lunar eclipse, the shadow of Earth blocks most of the light that illuminates the surface of our moon. This eclipse began at 11:26 p.m. (PST) on Thursday, March 13,... More...
NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently unveiled breathtaking images of Jupiter during its 66th flyby of the colossal planet. Juno has been exploring Jupiter and its surroundings, including its rings and numerous moons, to uncover the planet’s secrets. According to a NASA statement, understanding Jupiter could provide valuable insights into understanding the entire solar system.1
Did you know... More...
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system, and NASA’s Juno spacecraft recently detected the largest volcanic event ever observed on that body.1 During a flyby on December 27, 2024, Juno detected the infrared radiation from a gargantuan volcanic hot spot larger than Lake Superior near Io’s south pole (see figure). The volcanism caused a subtle but noticeable change in the appearan... More...
Astronomers have discovered a disintegrating rocky planet in another solar system.1,2 This extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, has been given the designation BD+05 4868 Ab. It orbits so close to its host star that the intense heat is literally vaporizing its solid, rocky material! The astronomers making the discovery explained,
Small, rocky planets orbiting their host stars too closely can vapor... More...
Astronomers have detected a likely binary star pair, designated as D9, orbiting the supermassive black hole Sag A* at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.1,2 As the name implies, a binary consists of two stars bound by gravity orbiting around their common center of mass. Based on uniformitarian assumptions and the presence of gas and dust around the binary pair, astronomers concluded the binary has an age of “just” 2.7... More...