When it comes to finding an Earth-like planet, we may have just made the closest discovery yet – this world lies less than 16 light-years away and is within its star’s habitable zone. Wolf 1069 b is likely tidally locked to its host star, meaning the same side always faces toward it. Yet its closeness…
Astrobiologists and advocates of human space colonization have long searched for planets similar to Earth in terms of conditions – with water bodies and an atmosphere that offers protection from cosmic radiation. Exoplanets circling stars other than our Sun are now estimated in the thousands, yet finding an Earth-like planet within its host star’s habitable…
Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 Earth days on an elliptical path which may bring it as close as 29 million miles or as far away as 43 million miles from our star. Magnetic reconnection between the IMF and Mercury’s planet magnetosphere is the most efficient process for mixing plasma, allowing solar wind to…
