In the Star Wars movies fictional planets are covered with forests, oceans, deserts, and volcanoes. But new models from a team of MIT, NASA, and Carnegie scientists begin to describe an even wider ...

Combined chemical and hydrodynamic modeling offers a powerful tool beyond Jupiter. Scientists can apply similar techniques to ...

The search for life beyond Earth is a key driver of modern astronomy and planetary science. The U.S. is building multiple major telescopes and planetary probes to advance this search. However, the ...

Circumbinary planets experience a time varying irradiation pattern as they orbit their two host stars. In this work, we present the first detailed study of the atmospheric effects of this irradiation ...

Planets smaller than Neptune but larger than Earth, with atmospheres saturated with water vapor due to extreme temperatures, are puzzling astronomers. Scientists have developed an improved model to ...