Extrasolar maelstrom!

This week might be considered a red-letter period for discoveries relating to extrasolar planets, from imaging alien comets and their implications for otherworldly oceans to witnessing the dusty disks and primordial protoplanets of young, forming star systems. In case you missed it, this week provides your healthy dose of Exoplanetology: Very “Wet” Extrasolar System Found The European […]

Solar System’s “Planet X” lost in space?

Well, the intriguing possibilities affecting the likelihood of a mysterious companion in our Solar System continue to blossom. First, the actions of comets suggested that there may be a large “Planet X” named Tyche beyond the Oort Cloud. Then, we discovered planets around distant stars with highly elliptical, highly inclined orbits, giving us more potential […]

“Planet X” lost in space?

Researchers at the University of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institute have performed one of the most extensive analyses of Earth’s past extinction patterns to date. So, what did researchers Adrian Melott and Richard Bambach conclude? Planet X cannot exist. Planet X, also known as Nemesis, is a proposed “dark” (i.e. dim) companion star to the […]

Meet Philae, the Comet Hitchhiker

It is an exciting time for space exploration. The Cassini spacecraft continues to dazzle us from Saturn. The legendary Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to prove their Herculean endurance on the desert planet. The MESSENGER spacecraft is en route to Mercury, and New Horizons is on its way to Pluto. -And, to my point […]

Solar System has more than one “Planet X”?

Recent observations of the nearby (44 light-years away) multi-planet star system Upsilon Andromedae have kindled in my mind an intriguing question: Namely, can our own solar system have one or perhaps many “Planet Xs” hiding in oblique orbits? Allow me to explain. It has been known for quite some time that the Upsilon Andromedae star […]

Solar System’s “Planet X” Returns!

Our solar system may have just gotten a lot more interesting. Researchers studying the orbits of comets at the University of Louisiana have found a problem. -They’ve discovered an inconsistency with how comets are spread out compared to what you would expect under ordinary galactic conditions. In an article recently submitted to the journal Icarus, […]