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Which planets have rings?Does Jupiter have rings? How about Uranus? Here's everything you need to know about which planets have rings.
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How many planets are in the universe?We currently know of more than 5,800 planets beyond the solar system, but we've only found the tiniest fraction of the exoplanets that astronomers think lie elsewhere in the universe.
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World's largest solar telescope turns on powerful new camera, revealing breathtaking image of a continent-size sunspotThe Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world's largest solar telescope, can see the sun in unprecedented detail. Here is the first image from its newly-activated camera.
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Which planet is closest to the sun?Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to orbit the sun.
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Is the moon a planet?The moon is a round, rocky body, but is it a planet? The answer, scientists say, is complicated.
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How old is planet Earth?How old is Earth? Our planet's age is known from a variety of sources, from rocks on our own planet to ones from the moon.
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Mysterious 'magic' islands that come and go on Saturn's moon Titan finally have an explanationBright spots that appear and vanish on Saturn's moon Titan have a seemingly simple explanation — they're floating chunks of frozen organic material.
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Mercury may have a 'potentially habitable' region below its surface, salty glaciers suggestSalty glaciers discovered in craters near Mercury's north pole may have the right conditions for extreme forms of life, new research suggests.
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Mysterious 'lunar swirls' that perplexed scientists for decades may be close to an explanationNo one knows what causes lunar swirls, but new evidence shows they may be tied to certain elevations on the moon's surface.
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The oldest continents in the Milky Way may be 5 billion years older than Earth'sSeveral exoplanets at the edge of our galaxy could have formed continents — and advanced life — 5 billion years earlier than Earth, new research suggests.
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Pluto may have an ice-spewing 'supervolcano' the size of Yellowstone, New Horizons data revealsKiladze Caldera, formerly called Kiladze crater, may be a supervolcano that erupted fairly recently, spewing ice across the surface of Pluto.
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Soar through the 'Labyrinth of Night' — a Martian canyon the size of Italy — in thrilling new satellite videoSee Mars' geology up close, thanks to decades of stunning images from the Mars Express satellite, in a new visualization of Noctis Labyrinthus, the 'Labyrinth of Night'.
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Mysterious 'fountain of youth' near Milky Way's central black hole is full of newborn stars that shouldn't existNew James Webb Space Telescope observations might be able to explain why clusters of young stars keep turning up near the Milky Way’s central black hole.
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Mercury is still shrinking after billions of years, and scientists can see its 'wrinkles'The smallest planet in our solar system is getting smaller as heat escapes its core and fresh cracks open on its surface, new research finds.
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Mathematicians find 12,000 new solutions to 'unsolvable' 3-body problemCalculating the way three things orbit each other is notoriously tricky — but a new study may reveal 12,000 new ways to make it work.
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James Webb telescope reveals the universe may have far fewer active black holes than we thoughtAlmost every galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its center. So why is it so hard to find young black holes actively feeding?
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A black hole 'assassin' ripped a star to shreds and left its guts strewn about the galaxyAstronomers studied the remains of a massive star ripped apart by a black hole in an epic astro-forensic murder investigation.
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James Webb telescope discovers carbon compounds crucial to life in star system 1,000 light-years from EarthAn infant star system contains the basic building block for organic chemistry, new James Webb Space Telescope images reveal.
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Aliens might be using a nearby supernova to get our attention, new study suggestsSN 2023ixf is the closest supernova to Earth in more than a decade — and the perfect excuse for intelligent aliens to get our attention, new SETI research suggests.
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Scientists discovered a crucial element for life gushing out of Saturn's icy ocean moonAstronomers have confirmed the presence of phosphates — a crucial ingredient for life — in a plume of icy water gushing out of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
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Dying stars build humongous 'cocoons' that shake the fabric of space-timeNew simulations show that dying stars release enormous "cocoons" of gas that may rattle with space-time ripples called gravitational waves.
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There may be hundreds of millions of habitable planets in the Milky Way, new study suggestsA new analysis of Kepler data shows that one-third of small stars called M dwarfs may have the potential to host life.
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What is the speed of light?Light is faster than anything else in the known universe, though its speed can change depending on what it's passing through.
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What's the difference between outer space and deep space?Space, outer space, and deep space — which is further out, and which is the real final frontier?
