The main working hypothesis for the Mercury problem says that the planet is the victim of a collision with a different-sized object. The cataclysmic collision stripped much of the planet's mantle and ...

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has captured the motion of spirals of dust around a young star and shown that the winding motion of the spiral pattern is conducive to planet ...

The formation of Mercury remains an unsolved mystery. The planet closest to the sun has a disproportionately large metallic ...

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a massive planet in the Nu Octantis binary star system, first suspected in 2004. Using advanced tools like the HARPS spectrograph, researchers found that ...

The Planetary Analogue Simulation Laboratory (PASLAB) is part of the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure. It serves independent research purposes, but can be used in common projects/missions ...

Could a vagabond giant from the outermost regions of interstellar space be poised on the cusp of sweeping by our cosmic doorstep? Astronomers say yes and they have the data to support it. Using the ...

Animations show the evolution of density and flow in simulations of a planet embedded in the envelope of a giant star, showing the interactions of the inspiralling planet with the gas in its vicinity.

Even in the best case when they are well understood, conditions on lunar and planetary surfaces can be hard to duplicate physically. This makes digital simulations an essential tool during mission ...

Sooner or later, a sizable asteroid could impact a populated area on Earth. How is the US, and the world, preparing?

A new study using hydrodynamical simulations reveals the forces acting on a planet when it is swallowed by an expanding star. The results show that the interactions of a substellar body (a planet or ...

When our sun exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core some 5 billion years from now, it will expand to become a red giant, engulfing the inner planets. The dynamics and possible outcomes of planetary ...