Rogue planets captured by the Sun are able to make their way into the solar system
The Sun scoops up rogue planets as they fly by. The Sun is capable of capturing both small planets and Jupiter-sized gas giants that stray too close; our star then keeps them at the edge of the solar system.
The mechanism by which black holes glow remains an unsolved mystery for scientists
A team of astronomers studied 16 supermassive black holes that shoot powerful beams into space to track where the beams, or jets, are pointing now and where they were pointing in the past. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), they found that some of the beams had changed direction by a large amount.
Gravity and life: new discoveries
Scientists have found geological evidence that the gravitational interaction between Mars and Earth is driving the 2.4-million-year deep-sea circulation cycle and global warming. What happens if the moon disappears? Stars can strip entire planets of their atmospheres. Discovery of retrograde orbits.
Magnetic Universe. New discoveries – from everyday use to neutron stars
Scientists smashed atom against atom and unleashed a magnetic monster. A groundbreaking experiment has created a field so strong it could eclipse the grip of a neutron star. Rotating magnets can create levitation that is almost impossible to physics. For the first time, physicists had a clear understanding of how individual atoms behave like waves.
Laws formulated by a 17th century scientist are used in modern space technologies
The story of how we understand planetary motion would be impossible to tell if not for the work of the German mathematician Johannes Kepler. Kepler’s Three Laws describe how the planets orbit the Sun. They describe 1 – how planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun as the focus, 2 – a planet covers the same area of space in the same amount of time, regardless of where it is in its orbit, and 3 – the period revolution is proportional to the size of its orbit.