Stellar Video Shows Comet Leonard as It Zips by Earth For The 1st Time in 80,000 Years

Since early this year, skywatchers on Earth have been tracking Comet Leonard, a kilometer-wide dirty snowball made of ice, rock, and dust. Now, as it heads towards a close encounter with the Sun on 3 January 2022, several spacecraft – with the distinct advantage of having an unobstructed front-row seat to the action – have … Read more

Alien Life Could Theoretically Survive Within Venus’s Clouds, Scientists Say

With an atmosphere acidic enough to strip the skin from your bones, Venus is far from what we might imagine as hospitable. But a new study backs up the idea that cocoons of life could potentially exist in the planet’s corrosive clouds.   Researchers have identified a chemical pathway through which the droplets of sulfuric … Read more

Comet Leonard may have spawned meteor shower on Venus

Comet Leonard may be sparking meteor showers at Venus this weekend during a relatively close approach of the comet to the planet. Officially known as comet C/2021 A1, also known as Comet Leonard was discovered in January by astronomer Gregory J. Leonard of the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory in Arizona. Its close pass of Venus this … Read more

Brightening Comet Leonard may be visible without a telescope. Look near Venus.

Comet Leonard spent the first couple of weeks of December visible as a target for observers with binoculars and telescopes in the early morning sky before sunrise.  Now, however, the viewing venue has changed and the newfound Comet Leonard (cataloged as C/2021 A1) has moved into the evening sky, visible low above the southwestern horizon … Read more

Venus: Early impacts on the planet may have made it far hotter than Earth

Collisions with high-speed space rocks in Venus’s early history could have melted most of the planet’s mantle and driven any water into the atmosphere Space 17 December 2021 By Jonathan O’Callaghan Artist’s rendering of an early, large collision on Venus Southwest Research Institute/Simone Marchi High-speed impacts on Venus early in its history could help explain … Read more

Is our solar system a cosmic oddity? Evidence from exoplanets says yes

When we started finding planetary systems around other stars we thought many of them would be like ours. We’ve now found hundreds – and it’s so far, so wrong Space 1 December 2021 By Stuart Clark Duc LOng Once upon a time, there was a solar system. In it lived four small rocky planets called … Read more